


Invisible String

by rosiemigosie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Slow Burn, Soulmates, but we already knew that, eventually, for now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:22:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25396093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosiemigosie/pseuds/rosiemigosie
Summary: Clarke had spent her whole life on the Ark looking for her soulmate.  But with only their shared bruises to go by, it proves to be an impossible task.  Once they're on the ground, her search takes a back seat to simply surviving.  Life on earth is harder than she ever dreamed, and Bellamy Blake isn't making it any easier.  So imagine her surprise when she realizes that he's the soulmate she's been looking for for over a decade.  Clarke thinks the universe must have a sense of humor and the joke's on her.Soulmate AU where bruises and pain felt by one is felt by the other.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 71
Kudos: 234





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OK SO  
> This is the first fic that I'm sharing with anyone other than my closest friends so uuuuuuuuuh please be gentle lmao. Just as a heads up, I plan on sticking pretty close to canon at least for the first few seasons, but probably will eventually deviate, in case that's not your thing. I have an idea on how I want to end this but haven't quite settled. I'll update tags as I go.

Clarke had always known she had a soulmate. The bruises and random pains had been happening since before she could remember. When she was five (or maybe six, she was young enough that she couldn’t quite recall), her parents had given her a simple explanation before bed one night.

“You have a soulmate, honey,” her dad had told her.

“Soul…mate?” Clarke had responded, slightly confused. Her mother seemed anxious at her question, while her dad’s smile just broadened.

“You remember what a soul is, Clarke?” Jake asked her, patiently.

“It’s the part of you that makes you…you,” she said, muddling her way through, trying to pick the right words. “But on the inside.”

Jake beamed at her. “That’s right! Well, this means that somewhere on the Ark, there’s a person whose soul matches yours. And their love will be very special to you.” 

“Like you and Mom?” Clarke asked, looking at his adoring face and then to her mother, who was looking much less enthused. Abby’s eyebrows came together and she squeezed Jake’s shoulder.

“Maybe, kiddo. Or maybe like you and Wells; there are different kinds of soulmates. That’s something that only the two of you can figure out.”

Clarke looked down at the bruise that had freshly appeared on her arm that morning. Jake reached out to where she was sitting on her bed and put a warm hand on her knee.

“Because your souls are the same, when one of you gets hurt, the other one will feel it, Clarke.” His hand moved to the bruise that she was looking at. “So, that means that you have to be extra careful. You wouldn’t want your soulmate to hurt, right?” At that, Clarke looked back up at her father. Suddenly the idea of this person, this unknown shadow who had suddenly appeared, filled her with dread. Her young mind began to race at all the possibilities this contained.

“What happens if I die? Will they die, too?”

Jake burst into laughter. “That’s your first question?” His hand moved from her arm to the top of her head. “No, honey, they won’t. But they will be very, very sad.”

Clarke nodded and rubbed her arm. After a brief second, she hopped to her feet, suddenly bursting with energy. “How do I know who they are? How did you and Mom find out? How does my soul _know_?”

“Whoa, whoa, Clarke, let’s slow it down. How about you sleep on it, and we’ll talk about it some more tomorrow?” Jake stood up and looked at her like he was genuinely asking if this was ok with her.

“Your father’s right, Clarke, you know it’s bedtime.” Clarke looked at Abby, whose demeanor was much more stern than Jake’s. Clarke huffed and turned to climb back up on the bed. She crawled under the thinning blanket and looked up at her parents.

“You promise we’ll talk about it tomorrow?” she asked. Her father’s eyes crinkled around the edges, even if he didn’t smile. Her mother softened slightly, but still looked to be a bit uncomfortable to Clarke.

“Of course, honey, you can ask as many questions as you want, and you know your mother and I will do the best we can to answer them.” He reached down and smoothed one of her stray blonde waves behind her ear. Clarke sighed in resignation.

“Ok. Love you.”

“And we love you,” Abby said, truly relaxing for the first time since the conversation started. She bent down and kissed her cheek, tucking the blanket around her shoulders. “Goodnight, Clarke.”

“Goodnight!” Clarke called as they began to retreat to the open door that led to the rest of their relatively small quarters.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite!” Jake called back, turning off the lights before the door shut behind him.

As Clarke lay in bed, drifting off, she unconsciously touched the bruise on her arm. Even though it hurt, and even though she knew that this meant her soulmate was hurting too, she couldn’t help but notice a warm feeling in her chest. She thought about this person, her person, lying in bed and falling asleep, too. The last thing she thought before succumbing to sleep was a content, _Goodnight, soulmate_.

+

The very next day she had told Wells.

"Whoa! So, you mean that the person you’re going to marry is already picked out?” he had asked, looking over her bruise from the night before plus the new one that had appeared on her hand.

“Well, no. Or maybe not. Dad said a soulmate can be just friends! Like you and me,” she smiled at him. Wells was the other constant in her life. She had always had mysterious aches and pains, but she had also always had Wells. He was her best (and only) friend.

Wells sighed and kicked at something on the ground that wasn’t really there. “I wish you were my soulmate,” he grumbled. Clarke laughed and threw her arms around him. “We’ll be soulmates, too! How could anyone be better than you? You’re the best!” Wells giggled and sheepishly returned her hug. “You’re the best, too, Clarke.” 

So Clarke did what came naturally to her and learned as much as she could about soulmates. She found out after that initial conversation that her parents were not soulmates. In fact, most couples weren’t. It had become something of a rarity for anyone to be born with a soulmate on the Ark. For whatever reason, over the course of humanity’s tenure in space, matched souls were dying out. She also learned that the ways that soulmates were connected had changed over the course of human history and no one knew why. Hundreds of years ago, anything that was written or tattooed on one’s skin would appear on the other. Clarke found herself envious of those people. How easy it must’ve been to find one another. Every attempt she had made at finding her soulmate had been fruitless.

Not that there was much she could do. At first, she would search everyone she ran into. Straining her eyes to see if the bruises that manifested on her were anywhere to be found. But no one she encountered carried the same pain that she did.

Years later, when they were around eleven, Clarke had asked Thelonius Jaha, Wells’ father, about something that was used before the bombs to find soulmates. She had read about it in a magazine that was preserved in the Ark library.

“A database?” he parroted back to her, tearing his eyes from the movie their families had gotten together to watch. “No, I’m afraid not, Clarke. With limited resources, something like that wouldn’t have been a priority to the original inhabitants of the Ark. Plus, there are so few of you now, it just doesn’t seem necessary anymore.” He gave her a sympathetic look and turned his attention back to the movie. She sighed and sank into the couch she was sharing with her mother. Wells, who was sitting at her feet on the floor, leaned into her leg as a show of support. She had told him about the increasing size and frequency of the bruises that she was getting. She was worried about her soulmate. There had always been general aches and pains, but now it seemed to be more than what she considered to be normal. She had long figured out that whoever they were, they must be on a different station, because none of the kids in any of her classes or the grades above and below her ever had any of her marks. Wells teased her that maybe her soulmate was old and decrepit. She had just shaken her head and smiled. Somehow she knew that wasn't the case. She could feel that her soulmate was young too, just not on Alpha station.

At lunch the next day, Clarke expressed her concern about the uptick of injuries in detail to Wells. “What if they’re getting into fights? What if someone’s bullying them? What if…” She didn’t even want to vocalize the worst thing that came to her mind. What if it was someone they lived with? Someone who was supposed to love them? She knew that those sorts of things happened, despite that it was a floatable offense.

Wells looked at her reassuringly. “Maybe they’re just clumsy, Clarke. What if they had a growth spurt and are still adjusting? You remember what Graham was like when he grew last summer,” he wiggled his eyebrows at her. She thought about the older boy, how he had grown around half a foot in about two months’ time. He had definitely had an adjustment period. She considered him repeatedly hitting his head on the doorway to Earthskills class. She conjured up an image in her mind’s eye of her soulmate, who was always a shadow person, doing the same. _Does that mean they’re tall?_ She thought to herself. She caught herself daydreaming and brought her attention back to Wells. While she did want to meet her soulmate, losing herself in fantasies was pointless.

“I hope you’re right,” she said as she put what was left of her portions on his tray.

+

A few weeks later, Clarke woke up with a black eye. She gingerly touched her middle finger at the edge of the ugly greenish-yellow that was still spreading across her right cheek bone. She tried to sneak out to school without her mom seeing but realized she failed when she heard a gasp behind her in the kitchen.

“Clarke?! Who did this to you?” Abby demanded, rather than asked, gripping her chin and examining her daughter’s face.

“Uh, my soulmate?” Clarke offered, looking at the ground. Where Clarke’s father had always seemed hopeful and optimistic of her soulmate, Abby had only grown more apprehensive and skeptical as the years went on.

“This is ridiculous. What could they possibly be up to?” She dropped Clarke’s chin after taking one last look at her eye. She went into the main bedroom and came back a moment later with the first aid kit that she kept for emergency house calls. “Sit down,” she said, motioning towards the couch. Clarke sighed and did as she was told. Abby pulled out a cold pack and gently placed it on Clarke’s face.

“Mom, this really isn’t necessary. It doesn’t even hurt that much,” Clarke insisted, taking the pack from her mother impatiently. “I need to get going, Wells is waiting.”

Abby’s shoulders drooped just a bit as she stood up, giving in. “I know, Clarke,” she said reaching out for the pack. Clarke gave it back to her and tried not to show the pain on her face as the numbing affect of the cold wore off. She didn’t need her mother worrying anymore than she did, and besides, it’s not like there was anything anyone could do about it. _Except find them_ , she thought to herself.

“Ok, well, bye mom,” Clarke said as she made her way towards the door, grabbing her bag as she went. Attempting to once again make a hasty exit.

“Clarke?” Abby called out, causing Clarke to turn back towards her. “Promise me-“ Abby began, concern written all over her face. She seemed to second guess herself though, as she didn’t finish whatever it was that she was going to ask of her daughter.

“Promise you what, mom?” Clarke asked, genuinely curious. She didn’t have the slightest idea of what Abby might be about to say.

“You know what? Never mind, honey. We’ll talk about it later. Have a good day at school,” Abby smiled tightly at her. Clarke wanted to argue but knew that it was unlikely that she would get anything out of her mother in that moment. Plus, she really did need to go.

“Ok, then,” Clarke said turning back towards the door. “Bye, love you!” she called out, as she saw Wells waiting outside their quarters for her. The door slid shut behind her as he turned to look at her, his face immediately registering what was on hers.

“I know, I know. It looks bad,” she lamented, exasperation already setting in. It was going to be a long day.

+

Three weeks later, she broke her arm. She and Wells had been exploring one of the (more or less) abandoned parts of Farm station while their fathers worked on an issue with the water filtration system. Wells had climbed to the top of a shelf that seemingly had once held office supplies. When he began his descent, he snagged his pant leg on a rusted piece of the shelf frame, and so Clarke had had no choice but to rescue him. Unfortunately for her, she was not as sure footed as Wells was on her way back down and fell, landing directly on her right arm.

Later, after a scolding from both Abby and Thelonius, Wells sat next to Clarke in the infirmary. “So you know the one good thing that might come from this?” he asked her, obviously trying to cheer her up. Clarke looked at him but didn't say anything. She didn't blame him in even the slightest bit, but it still hurt and she was tired. Medicine shortages meant that there were no pain killers for something as slight as a broken arm, even if she was the daughter of a council woman and head doctor.

“If you broke your arm, then your soulmate must be feeling it, too, right?” he said, getting excited. Clarke failed to realize how this was a good thing. It hadn't dawned on her up until then that now her other half would be experiencing this as well, but they must be. If anything, this just made Clarke feel worse than she already did. She had disappointed her parents (and Wells' father, who might as well have been her parent, at this point), broken her arm, and now she had to deal with the guilt of whoever it was dealing with this, too. At least she was left handed. Statistically speaking, her soulmate was probably not so lucky.

“Don't you think they'll come in? This is a lot worse than a couple of bruises!” Wells said, openly smiling now. Of course they'd come in to the medicenter. _This feels awful!_ She thought to herself. And then it clicked.

They'd come in. Where her mother worked. Where they kept records of the patients they saw! She would be able to figure out who they were! Or at the very least narrow it down. If she could just get an _idea_ , then she had no doubt that she could figure it out from there. She grinned at Wells.

“You're a genius! We should've broken my arm ages ago!”

An incredulous look came across his face. “I don't know about that, now. But at least this is better than just a broken arm?”

She nodded. “The best silver lining.” She left with her mother that evening excited.

But no one with a broken arm came in. At least not anyone that could have been her soulmate. Her mother had flat out refused to tell her, due to “doctor patient confidentiality”, but Clarke had figured out the password to her work station years ago (it was Jake's birthday). Looking through the logs, the only people who had come in with anything even close to a broken arm were a six year old boy and a thirty-six year old mother. The six year old was physically impossible, he hadn't even been alive when Clarke started feeling her soulmate, and while the older woman could technically be them, she seriously doubted she would have missed the pain of childbirth or C-section surgery (the woman's child was eight according to the file).

Clarke exited out of the program, feeling true frustration over her situation for the first time. Why didn't they come to see a doctor? They would want to at least come try to get something for the pain. Right? Based on what she could tell from the amount of pain, most of the injuries she received from them just seemed to be superficial, never actually breaking skin, so she doubted that her soulmate's arm actually broke, but surely they felt it? She didn't think that her pain tolerance was that low, she knew that it had hurt. She swallowed and thought about the shadow, bumping their head on doorways and getting into fights.

_Where are you?_

+

In the following months, Clarke devoured everything on soulmates that she could get her hands on. She poured over every book in the library, went through every file even remotely related in the archive. One Saturday afternoon she came across a paper written pre-bombs discussing the occurrence of one-sided soul matches. Just another part of soulmates that science failed to explain; sometimes people were born destined for a person who wasn't matched to them in return. Her entire body immediately went cold. What if that was why she hadn’t found them? The reason they hadn't come to the medicenter? She thought about the shadow person, _her_ person. But what if they weren’t? What if she was intended for a life of unrequited feelings? Or worse, she never found them? That thought hadn’t even crossed her mind before, she had always just assumed that eventually they would find each other.

 _No_ , she told herself, pushing down the rising panic that felt like it was clawing its way up her throat. _No, that’s not it. It can’t be._ She steeled herself and finished what she was reading. According to the author, it was very rare, even when soulmates were prevalent, for a person to be born with a soul whose mate didn’t match theirs. _See?_ Clarke chided herself. _Nothing to worry about._ She moved on to the next piece she had queued up, an article on an ancient legend. She scoffed at the idea of a being with four legs and arms who had been split in two because of some gods’ jealousy. She thought the theory that it was an evolutionary trait much more likely. The human race doing everything it could to assure its survival.

She suppressed a yawn and stood up to stretch. Looking at the books she had set aside to go through, she suddenly became very tired. She decided that maybe she had done enough research for the day and took the books back to the front desk, giving the older custodian a grateful smile.

“Same time next week, Ms. Griffin?” the woman, asked her, good naturedly. She took the books and set them behind her to be put back out. “Should I keep a list of these for you?”

“No, that’s ok. If I need them again, I’ll know where to find them. Til next week.”

The entire way back to her families’ quarters, she thought about her shadow person. Since the arm incident, she hadn’t really had anything other than small, everyday bruises. She was glad, breaking her arm hadn’t been a fun experience _at all,_ but she also felt a little distant from them at the same time. A silly feeling, she thought, given that she had never even met them. How could she feel distant from a complete stranger? Saying that she had felt close to them up until recently seemed foolish now that she was examining said feeling. But she had. She could feel her creeping doubts taking hold. The only thing keeping them connected at this point was injuries. Up until her broken arm, she had sometimes wondered if her soulmate even knew she was there. Clarke had always been a careful child, she’d never needed any surgeries or had any big accidents. She’d not had her appendix rupture, like Wells, or needed her tonsils removed like one of the girls in her class. It would probably be easy for them to assume that any of the bruises or hurts that they had from her were their own. _If they even get mine at all_ , the thought came, unbidden, as she reached the door that was hers. _Use your head Clarke, you know that’s statistically unlikely_ , she lectured herself. She pressed the button to open the door and stepped through the doorway. _They’re out there, you just have to find them_.

+

The next year, Clarke began her apprenticeship under her mother in the medicenter. Between that and school, she found herself too exhausted to give her soulmate much thought other than the occasional consideration when a fresh bruise appeared on her body. They had remained much less frequent as time went on and Clarke hoped that whatever had been going on in their life had gotten better.

When she was sixteen she woke up in a sweat. She had been dreaming of four legged and armed people that were being torn in half by terrible beings that were larger than life, somehow taking up the entire sky with their terrifying presence. She’d run as fast as she could from the awful sight, and then, as dreams sometimes do, she was suddenly in another place. She was in front of a large door on what she assumed was Earth and she knew that she needed to get through it. She knew with every fiber of her being that if she didn’t open the door and get to who was on the other side that something unbearable was going to happen. But it wasn’t her time, not yet. She knew she was early, far too early. The flowers were still blooming. She awoke as she was banging her fists on the door, begging for entry.

Clarke peeled the blanket off of herself and made her way into the common area. She had intended to get some water to calm herself down but noticed that her father’s light was still on in his work room. She knew it was well past when he usually went to sleep for the night. While it wasn’t completely unusual, she knew that he must be tired or frustrated (the Ark didn’t fix itself), so she decided he could maybe use a break. She knocked on the door as quietly as she could, not wanting to wake her mother up.

He looked tired when the door opened, like he’d aged inexplicably in the last few months.

“Clarke? Is something wrong, kiddo?” he looked down at her, worry making his age lines deeper.

“Uh, bad dream?” she said, suddenly concerned about her father. Had he always had so many grey hairs?

“Oh, yeah? Why don’t you step into my office and tell me about it?” He stepped to the side and held his arm out to the chair next to his work bench. She shuffled past him as he closed the door and followed behind him as he moved across the room.

“So, don’t tell me it’s the Alpha Station Massacre again?” he grinned at her, resembling the dad that she was used to.

“You still remember that?” she asked, a little embarrassed. When she and Wells had participated in the Unity Day ceremony years ago, one of the kids from Mecha station had told them the story of an original Arker, a Brazilian captain who saw demons everywhere. She didn’t sleep well for months, terrified that every sound she heard was Captain Fidalgo coming to slay her in her sleep.

“Of course, Clarke, how could I forget?” he said smiling, sagging back into his chair. “So, tell me about it. Unless you're too old to tell your old man about your nightmares?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Never, Dad,” she insisted. While she never wanted to add to either of her parents' burdens, she knew that this was something that she could confide with no real consequence. “Ok, well. It's pretty weird but here goes.” She walked him through what she could remember of her dream, because the details were beginning to fade.

“That is pretty bizarre, Clarke, I have to say,” he said after she was done.

“Yeah, I know. I think the first part has to do with soulmates? I read an old Earth legend a while back about them being one entity split into two who are still connected,” she said, trying to remember the specifics of the tale. Jake didn't say anything while Clarke lost herself in thought.

“Hey, Dad?” she asked, trying to bolster her courage to ask a question that had been building since that very first time her parents had told her about her soulmate. Her father turned to her, coming out of his own reverie. “Why does Mom not like soulmates?”

Jake sighed, somehow seeming more tired than before. “It's not that she doesn't like soulmates, Clarke. She's just worried.” He searched her face and rested his arm on his desk. “When your mother and I were teenagers, there was a soulmate match that was very well known around the Ark.” Clarke looked at him with confusion at that. “It was a modern day fairy tale. And people on the Ark need as much happiness and hope as they can get, even if it's not their own,” he looked sad, suddenly. Clarke wondered who for, this couple or someone else? “The two people had known each other since infancy; they were neighbors. So why not let everyone see? They were in love and happy,” he exhaled loudly, “until they weren't. There were rumors, but I don't really know what happened. One of them tried to move on with someone else and....” he trailed off.

“And?”

“The other one strangled them in their sleep. And then floated themselves.” Jake looked directly into Clarke's eyes, a deep melancholy there. “I know that they're romanticized, but it's not all good. Any relationship takes work and maturity. Even ones the universe thinks should happen.”

Clarke's throat was dry as she tried to swallow. “So that's why Mom's afraid? She thinks they'll hurt me or that I'll float myself over some other person?”

“It's not you, Clarke. She doesn't know this other person, and so she'll worry. I'm worried, too, I'm just better at hiding it.” He smiled gently at her and took her hand. “We both know that whatever happens with your soulmate, you'll be the best person that you can be. And we'll always be proud of you.” Clarke could feel tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

“But just because I'm a good person doesn't guarantee that my soulmate is,” Clarke added, saying what Jake had left hanging between them. He squeezed her hand and let it go. “It'll work out, Clarke. I think that you'll know what to do when the time comes.

“And with that, kiddo, I think it's time for bed, don't you?” he said, standing up and brushing non-existent dust off his chest. Clarke nodded quickly and stood up, too. He put his hands around her shoulders as they walked towards their respective rooms. “Goodnight, Honey,” he said as he kissed her on the top of her head. “Your soulmate is one lucky person.” She felt her chest tighten at those words. _I hope so_ , she thought.

As she watched her parents' door close behind her father, she couldn't help but think that she was the lucky one.

+

A few months later, Jake was dead. Clarke was locked in solitary confinement in the Skybox. The Ark was dying. And while she hadn't allowed herself the time to daydream about her soulmate before, now she had nothing but time. She pictured what they might look like, drawing pictures of what she imagined they might be doing on an average day. Sometimes that was eating in the mess, sometimes sleeping in a bed. She drew images of Earth, or what she could remember from the old movies and books she'd seen. She wondered if her soulmate would feel it when she was floated. She knew that they would feel something as she was physically dying, but would they feel some sort of loss? Like a piece of them was gone, even though they had never met? She felt sad for them, and sometimes she let herself feel it on her own behalf as well.

After some weeks had passed, she began drawing pictures of the one dream she had other than that of the day her father was executed. It didn't happen very often, but it was always close to the same thing. It was the continuation of the dream she'd had earlier, the one that she'd told her father about (she wondered if maybe that's why she continued this particular dream, because it was now irrevocably associated with him). She was in a hall, and she knew, although she didn't know how she knew, that she was underground. She wasn't sure how she'd gotten through the door that she had previously been trying so hard to open, but she never dwelled on it in the dreams. There was a man in the hall, and she was trying to convince him of something. She could never remember what exactly he looked like once she regained consciousness, frustrating her to no end. In her most recent dream, from what she could piece together, he was insisting that she leave his realm and she was arguing back by threatening him with something in her hand? She could never figure it out, it was something that she didn't recognize. Whatever it was, the deep pink hue of it stood out in stark contrast to the rest of the scene. It made even less sense than the usual randomness of dreams. She settled for drawing the hall and the object she was holding, since she couldn't remember the man well enough to draw him to satisfaction (she'd tried after other dreams). Clarke wondered, not for the first time, if she'd ever get to tell anyone about this strange recurring person visiting her at night.

+

It wasn't long after that that she found herself strapped into a dropship headed for the ground. With possibly the last person she ever wanted to see again in her life. Wells was the least of her concerns, though, as the ship came to a crashing halt on Earth. Before they had even laid eyes on the outside of the ship, two of the one hundred teenagers were already dead from their own stupidity. And now someone wanted to open the door.

“Stop! The air could be toxic!” Clarke yelled as she quickly got to the front of the crowd that had gathered. The guard who she was confronted with seemed strangely familiar, and also good looking, but she wouldn't admit that part to herself till a later date. He stared down at her for a brief second before saying, “Well, if the air is toxic, then we're all dead anyway.” Before she could get out a retort, someone else made their way to the two of them.

“Bellamy?” Everyone, including Clarke, turned to see a very pretty brunette looking at the guard in an almost reverent way. Clarke heard people talking amongst themselves, calling the newcomer 'Octavia Blake' and 'the girl under the floor'. Bellamy (Clarke assumed that must be his name) looked down at the girl apparently named Octavia with tenderness, smiling as he said, “My God. Look how big you are,” right before they embraced. Octavia broke the hug, and looked at him with disdain for a moment.

“What the hell are you wearing? A guard uniform?”

“I borrowed it. To get on the dropship,” he answered, shrugging slightly. “Someone's gotta keep an eye on you.” They hugged again, while Clarke's mind began racing a mile a minute. She took a harder look at Bellamy. He definitely seemed too old to be a teenager. So, he stole the guard uniform? Why would he need that to get on the dropship? She looked him up and down again, noticing something missing.

“Where's your wristband?” she asked, as Octavia turned to look at her for the first time. Bellamy's eyes locked with Clarke's briefly before Octavia interjected. “Do you mind? I haven't seen my brother in a year.” At that, everyone began muttering. “What? No one has a brother!” someone called out from the crowd, “That's the girl they hid under the floor!” another person yelled, louder this time. Octavia became visibly angrier the more people said, eventually lunging towards them.

“Octavia!” Bellamy grabbed her arm before she got out of reach. “Let's give them something else to remember you by.” Octavia looked up at him skeptically. “Yeah, like what?”

“Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years?” he suggested. Clarke could feel her heart beating wildly as he turned around and reached for the lever to open the door. But as much as she wanted to protest, she knew that what he had initially said was right. They had no supplies and would have to go outside sooner rather than later if they wanted to survive. Better radiation poisoning and seeing Earth before dying than starvation and the inside of the dropship as a final view.

Bellamy pulled the lever and after a few people tentatively began walking out, everyone surged forward. Clarke didn't stop herself from smirking, just a little, at Octavia's “We're back bitches!”

As she took in the vibrant colors, most of which she'd never seen before, and felt her feet hit the ground for the first time, she couldn't help but think about the fact that her father would never see this. And that her mother was trapped on a dying space station. _At least Mom knows_ , she thought to herself. Her soulmate, whoever they were, had no idea. They were just going about their life, not knowing that they only had a few months, at best. Soon, they'd start really feeling the oxygen deprivation side effects. Probably before her mother, since they were on one of the “lesser” stations. And the other alternative? That they would be on the ground with the one hundred soon. _But we have to show them we can make it first_ , Clarke resolved, taking the map to try and get some bearings on where they had landed. _We have to survive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the hardest time thinking of a name for this, so shout out to TSwift for dropping an amazing album lmao. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Holler at me in the comments!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goal is to update every Saturday, but we'll see how that goes.

Twenty-four hours later, and Clarke was back in the dropship and had never been so afraid. Not only did they have to deal with Grounders- living, breathing, _fighting_ Grounders (there were people alive on Earth!), but now she was legitimately concerned with this Bellamy problem. When her small group had left to look for Mt Weather yesterday, she didn't really think that too much harm would come from leaving him feeling as though he were in charge. To be honest, she didn't care if he _was_ in charge, as long as he wasn't getting them all killed. Now it seemed like his power trip would leave them and everyone left on the Ark dead or worse, judging by the screams coming from Jasper as the Grounders took him to...where ever it was that they came from.

Her brain kept playing back what had happened when they initially returned from the failed Mount Weather trek over and over again. She must have really misjudged Bellamy. While she had never thought he was an angel by any means, he had stolen a guard uniform and smuggled himself to the ground, after all, the looks and concern he showed for his sister demonstrated that he could care. And there was something that she couldn't quite put her finger on that made him feel...safe, reliable? She really had no idea, only that whatever that feeling was, it was clearly wrong. _Just who does he think he is, anyway_ , she thought to herself, shoving a light stick into her pack harder than was probably necessary. _Whatever the hell we want, unbelievable._

She let her mind wander as she prepared for the trek ahead. _Every rule had a purpose, nothing was ever done for no reason. Maybe floating people was harsh, but..._ she stopped for a moment. _We're on the ground now, things will be different. This is a second chance._ She hoped that what she was telling herself was true. Because if it wasn't...then everyone, her mom, Chancellor Jaha, her soulmate, they would all die. Not to mention probably everyone in the camp. Even Bellamy. She had to figure out a way to at least get him to see reason. _It's not like we have to like each other, just not actively try to kill each other._ She sighed. _But how?_

She finished putting her supplies in her bag and put her hands over her face in frustration. Clarke wasn't an idiot. She knew that Bellamy was right when he called her Princess, although it made her stomach turn when he said it to her with such disgust. She knew that she had grown up privileged on the Ark. And she knew that it wasn't right or fair. But even he wouldn't condemn innocent people, _children_ , to death just for “whatever the hell we want”, right? _His mother was floated for having a second child_ , a part of her whispered. _What kind of life did Octavia even have under the floor?_ She did her best to squash that part. She just simply didn't have the time. She would have to figure out a way to appeal to his self preservation, surely that would be the best route to take.

She was in the process of trying to mentally prep herself for leaving the dropship, and inevitably having to deal with whatever that brought when she heard someone coming up the ramp.

She looked up, meeting Wells' eyes as he came up to her.

“When my father said they didn't leave us anything, he really meant it,” he said, hopping down to the small platform she was on. She could tell that he was forcing brevity, trying to ease the tension between them. She ignored the comment, choosing instead to look at the wound he'd received courtesy of Murphy's knife. “It's just a scratch,” he said, pulling his arm away from her.

She looked at him, and didn't have the energy to fight or push him away. She could never forgive what he'd done to her father, to her, but she didn't have the luxury of out right refusing an ally at the moment. And she knew that he was likely to ignore any further attempt she made at putting distance between them. “You're making friends fast,” she said. “Keep it covered,” she motioned to his wound. “It could get infected.” She looked him over and noticed he had made a bag from what looked like pieces of scrap from the dropship. “Nice pack.”

“Thanks. I used seatbelts and insulation. I grabbed part of the parachute. I figured we could use it to carry Jasper back-” he said before Clarke cut him off.

“Good. Give it to someone else.” Just because she had gotten over her knee jerk reaction of punching him, didn't mean she wanted to spend extended periods of time with him. Plus, if she was honest, he was the only one she trusted to get the camp under control and possibly defensible. She started to leave, but before she could exit the dropship, Monty, appearing from the bowls of the ship, interrupted her.

“Clarke, we need him. No one else has volunteered.”

She turned to look at the both of them. “I'm sorry, Monty, but you're not going either.” The look on his face went from desperation to determination. “The hell I'm not. Jasper is my best friend.” Clarke knew that she was asking a lot of him. A few months ago, if something, some _one_ had thrown a spear into Wells' chest and dragged him off into the woods, nothing would have been able to keep her from trying to bring him back. She willfully didn't think about what she would do now if something happened to him. That was too...complicated. She didn't need the distraction from the task at hand.

“You're too important. You were raised on farm station and recruited by engineering.”

“So?”

“So, food and communication. You figure out how to talk to the Ark and I'll bring Jasper back.”

+

Outside the dropship, Clarke spotted Octavia and Bellamy together. Bellamy looked to be inspecting her leg as she sat on a log. Judging by the stern look on his face, he seemed to be fussing over her newly acquired Earth injuries. Something tugged at the back of Clarke's brain about the contradiction of how someone who liked to play dictator and resident bad boy could care so deeply about someone. _Maybe it's a sibling thing_ , she wondered. No one that she had ever known or even that her parents had ever known had been a sibling. She tucked that train of thought away to consider later. She would have to observe Bellamy a little more, maybe away from his adoring fans. There was just _something_ that made her want to believe there was good in him. Or at least not believe the worst of him. Usually her instincts about people were right. She just had to figure him out.

She walked over to the other side of camp, approaching the pair, Wells following behind her.

“You could've been killed,” Clarke caught Bellamy saying to Octavia, his tone thick with worry. He almost sounded parental.

“And she would've been, if Jasper hadn't jumped in to pull her out,” Clarke interjected, waiting to see what his response would be. She came to a halt next to the two of them, Octavia still sitting, her leg wound barely patched up. Bellamy was crouched at her feet. His eyes slid over to Clarke as she gripped the shoulder strap of her bag.

“You guys are leaving?” Octavia cut in, doing her best to stand. “I'm coming, too,” she said, surprising Clarke with her sincerity. Clarke had nothing against the younger girl, but her first impression of Octavia was that she had seemed somewhat shallow and quick to anger. But perhaps after living in the floor, essentially alone her whole life, she felt all her emotions in extremes and that extended to gratitude and loyalty as well. Clarke wasn't sure how old the younger girl was when she had been discovered. If Bellamy and their mother had been Octavia's only personal interactions for most of her life, no one would blame her if she'd turned out a little unstable. Whatever the case, there was certainly a strong bond between brother and sister. It occurred suddenly to Clarke that maybe Jasper was Octavia's first friend. _No wonder she wants to help_ , she thought. _I would, too._ She brought her attention back to the situation unfolding in front of her. Bellamy seemed to be getting worked up.

“No, no. No way. Not again,” Bellamy said, getting to his feet in a clear effort to keep Octavia from going anywhere.

“He's right,” Clarke said, looking at Octavia, “your leg's just going to slow us down. I'm here for you,” she said pointedly, looking at Bellamy. He turned to look at her, something akin to surprise on his face. Behind her, she vaguely heard Wells say, “Clarke, what are you doing?”

“I hear you have a gun,” she said, choosing to ignore Wells and doing her best to appear unimpressed. She didn't think that Bellamy would do anything rash, but she had been wrong before. Her general experience with bullies taught her that showing fear or weakness was the last thing she wanted to do. And even if she wasn't that worried about Bellamy (yet), there were definitely some in the clique that had formed around him that concerned her. They were all criminals of some kind, after all.

He looked down at her, their height difference being considerable, and reached down to lift his shirt up at his waistband. Clarke saw a hand gun tucked in to the back of his pants. “Good. Follow me,” she said, turning to leave.

“And why would I do that?” he asked. She turned to look at him. He really didn't understand the mighty leader role very well yet.

“Because you want them,” she nodded towards the rest of the camp, “to follow you.” Bellamy glanced at the people who were gathered near by, John Murphy among them. From what she had observed, he was Bellamy's second and the opportunistic type. There was zero doubt in her mind that Murphy would betray Bellamy in a heart beat if it was in his best interest.

“And right now they're thinking only one of us is scared,” she finished quietly. She felt like she could almost hear the gears turning in his head for a split second before she continued walking out of camp.

“Murphy come with me,” she heard Bellamy say as she got further away. She could tell that he was barking out more orders to other underlings but by that point she was out of earshot. As she and Wells walked out of the clearing that had suddenly become home, he sped up to walk next to her.

“Those guys aren't just bullies, Clarke,” he said. “They're dangerous criminals.”

Clarke didn't look at him. Of course, she knew this. And with Murphy she had no doubt that he would slit her throat if it suited him. She didn't know what his crime was to warrant being down here in the first place, but she doubted it was stealing bread for orphans. Whatever he had done, he seemed like someone whom the Ark had shown nothing but cruelty, and become worse for it. Bellamy she wasn't so sure of. She still had that nagging feeling that there was more to him than the arrogant jerk front that he put on for the crowd. Only time would tell, and either way she would be prepared.

She brought her thoughts back to the journey ahead as she and Wells continued through the forest. She quickly glanced sideways at him, “I'm counting on them being dangerous criminals, Wells.”

+

They were making good progress when Bellamy pushed through the brush, waiving the gun around. “Hey, hold up,” he said. Clarke turned to face him. “What's the rush?” he asked, “you don't survive a spear to the heart.” Wells stepped in between the two of them before saying, “Put the gun away Bellamy.”

Murphy stepped up to him and shoved Wells in the shoulder, “Well, why don't you do something about it, huh?” Clarke was already tired of all the testosterone. Couldn't these dumb guys see that none of them would be able to survive without each other?

“Jasper screamed when they moved him,” she stated to Bellamy, choosing not to acknowledge either Wells or Murphy. “If the spear struck his heart he would have died instantly.” She gave him a quick look up and down, knowing that it would probably strike a nerve in him. “It doesn't mean we have time to waste.” Leaving what she really wanted to convey unsaid: _You're wasting my time._

She turned to continue forward when she felt him grab her arm. It sent something of a shock through her system, not unlike one from static electricity, but somehow....deeper. She didn't have the luxury to really process, and quickly decided to dismiss it as some kind of Earth fluke, because Bellamy was talking to her.

“As soon as you take this wristband off, we can go.” He smiled at her smugly.

Clarke snatched her arm back from him and stepped forward. The fact that he looked so pleased with himself really grated on her. Like he had any say in what she did or did not do. She could feel her temper starting to rise.

She looked him square in his face as she said, “The only way the Ark is going to think I'm dead is if I'm dead.” Her eyebrows shot up to add emphasis as she stepped back.

“Got it?” she asked, hoping he would drop it. They really didn't have the time for this and she was already getting tired of this power struggle. To her surprise, though, Bellamy just smirked. “Brave Princess,” he said, and if Clarke didn't know any better, she would say he almost sounded impressed.

Clarke raised an eyebrow at that, just as she heard someone come up from behind the party.

“Hey, why don't you find your own nick name?” Finn suggested to Bellamy. “You call this a rescue party? We gotta split up, cover more ground. Clarke, come with me.” He passed them up, and Clarke couldn't help but notice the annoyed tone in his voice. She turned around, following his lead and moving off from the other three, happy to bring her previous conversation to an end. “Better late than never,” she said to him once they were a fair distance from the others. Finn grinned at her, “I like to think so.”

+

Hours later, they heard him. They followed his moans through some bushes til they came to a clearing. “Jasper!” Clarke cried out, seeing him tied up to a tree, like something out of an old Earth crucifix image. She looked around, noticing dozens of strange sticks or perhaps what were once trees that had been stripped of all their limbs filled the area surrounding Jasper.

“Oh my god, Jasper?” she called again, moving forward through the clearing. She pushed the poles she passed out of her way as she made a beeline for him. Bellamy was somewhere behind her saying “What the hell is this?” when she felt the ground under her give way. Her stomach was in her throat and it seemed like time slowed down as someone grabbed her arm. She looked up, surprised to see none other than Bellamy looking back down at her. She could see the war playing out on his face: drop her and be done with her or...

Or what? If she was in his place (and a potential psychopath) she couldn't think of one reason not to let go. She'd basically been the only one to stand up to him in camp, at this point. And that wasn't something any potential tyrant wanted. Sure, she had more medical knowledge than anyone on the ground, but she wasn't sure if he knew that, and he'd already made it crystal clear how he felt about her and where she came from on the Ark. The only ones who would put up any sort of resistance if she were to die were Finn and Wells, and they were both out here, too. It wouldn't be outrageous for Bellamy to say that Clarke's grip had slipped. Clarke could hear it now, _He'd tried to save her hadn't he? He just couldn't hold on tight enough._ That's more than most would probably expect given how they'd argued at camp earlier. And even if Finn and Wells didn't buy that, Bellamy and Murphy could easily take them with that gun. 

Clarke unconsciously held her breath. For the first time since landing on the ground she felt utterly powerless. _Please,_ she thought. _Please, don't let go;_ she hoped he could feel her stare boring into him. She vaguely heard Finn yelling “Pull her up!” and after what seemed like an eternity, they were all hauling her out of the pit. She stood up and bent over for a moment, heaving, trying to catch her breath. She looked down into what she had fallen into and couldn't describe it as anything but a trap. There were spikes at the bottom. She looked over at Bellamy, who was staring at her. Something unspoken passed between them, but she wasn't sure what. She wondered if he knew that she could see him contemplating letting her fall to her death. Begrudgingly, she was grateful that he hadn't. _Gee, thanks, Bellamy, for not letting me die in agony._

“You okay?” Either Finn or Wells asked, she couldn't tell over the blood still pounding in her ears. “Yeah,” she replied, looking back to Jasper. “We need to get him down,” she said, knowing that every second counted if they were going to get Jasper back to camp alive, but also now very concerned with how they'd found him.

“I'll climb up there and cut the vines,” Finn offered. Wells started moving after him, “Yeah, yeah. I'm with you.” But Finn turned around before Wells could take another step.

“No. Stay with Clarke. And watch him,” he said told Wells, motioning towards Bellamy. Whatever Bellamy had or hadn't done to save Clarke, Finn was clearly wary. He looked at Murphy next. “You. Let's go,” he told him, starting back again towards the tree that Jasper was strung up on.

Clarke, who was trying to ignore the fact that Bellamy was still looking at her, started to take an inventory of Jasper's injuries from what she could see. “There's a poultice on his wound,” she said in surprise.

“Medicine?” Wells asked. “Why would they save his life just to string him up as live bait?”

“Maybe what they're trying to catch likes its dinner to be breathing,” Bellamy said, looking down into the trap again.

“Maybe what they're trying to catch is us,” Finn said from across the chasm, still untying Jasper. Everyone took pause at that. Murphy was the first to break the spell, by jumping up on the tree to cut down Jasper's arms. Finn climbed up after him as Bellamy, Clarke, and Wells watched.

“Hurry up, Murphy,” Finn said. Clarke wondered if he thought Murphy was going slow or if it was just nerves on Finn's part. They were all anxious to get out of there as quickly as possible.

“Be careful,” Clarke called out. The last thing they needed was one of them falling off and breaking an ankle, or Jasper slipping and cracking his skull open on the ground. She was trying to decide if it would be faster for her to go over and help when everyone heard it. A low growling coming from the treeline.

“What the hell was that?” Murphy said, voicing what everyone was thinking.

“Grounders?” Bellamy speculated. Clarke doubted that noise came from anything human. They all began looking around frantically when Clarke saw movement in the tree line. At first it was just a big moving shadow and then she realized what it was: a giant black cat slinking towards them. With a loud roar it sprang into a full gallop, running straight in their direction.

“Bellamy! Gun!” was all Clarke could get out. She glanced next to her, where he was standing, never taking her eyes completely off the predator charging towards them. He reached around to pull out his weapon and Clarke saw him groping for something that wasn't there. The cat was getting closer with every millisecond. A shot rang out from Clarke's other side and she looked over to see Wells with the gun in his hand. The cat juked to the side and took at least one hit, but seemed utterly unfazed. After dodging another shot, it dashed into the tall grass and began circling the group. No one moved and Wells simply kept turning, trying to follow the animal's movements.

Suddenly it leaped out, jumping directly for Bellamy, who was standing separate from Wells and Clarke. Several feet in the air, a shot rang out and it abruptly fell to the ground. It heaved a few labored breaths and was dead. Wells was still pulling the trigger on the handgun, aimed at the cat, but nothing was coming out. He had emptied the clip trying to kill the thing. He dropped it on the ground. Clarke wasn't sure if it was because it was essentially useless now or if it had something to do with the adrenaline that she was sure was leaving his system.

Clarke felt like it had all happened in a whirlwind. They had all nearly died, fought off an apex predator, and saved Jasper in the span of seconds. She wanted to collapse, feeling more tired than she could ever remember feeling. And they still had to carry Jasper back home.

+

A few hours later, they made it back to camp. Finn and Wells carried Jasper behind Clarke who went straight to the dropship. Monty practically flew out, eyes searching for his best friend. He stopped when he saw Jasper's limp body. “Is he?”

“He's alive,” Clark said. “I need boiled water and strips of cloth for bandages,” she told him. He nodded, going to scrounge what could be found. Wells and Finn carried Jasper in as Clarke made room to lay him down somewhere. As they eased him onto the floor, she heard Bellamy outside. She stepped through the doorway, standing on the ramp of the dropship. She surveyed the scene that was playing out before her.

“WHO'S HUNGRY?” Bellamy cried, offering up the carcass like a king returned home triumphant. His loyal subjects cheered, in adoration or gratitude, Clarke couldn't tell. _Both, probably_ , she thought cynically to herself.

Clarke knew that it was a good idea for them to bring the panther (or at least that's what Wells had referred to it as) back with them. They needed food, and the hide would definitely come in handy if they ended up being outside for an extended period of time. Winter would eventually come, although that was definitely a problem for another day. What she wasn't sure was a good idea was to let Bellamy use it as a prop to garner more loyalty and allegiance from the rest of the one hundred.

He looked up at her from where he stood on the ground. He shrugged slightly, seemingly to say “What did you expect? It is what it is.” Clarke scoffed, turning around. For some reason, she thought maybe their shared experience would have shown him that they really did need to work together to survive in what was now their home. Apparently not. She just could not shake the feeling that there was something under the surface there, and that all she had to do was break through.

Once she was back in the dropship, she bent over Jasper and started to attempt to clean his face up. She settled in with the strips that Monty had found, mentally trying to prepare herself for a long night. The light from the fire outside along with the glow from the emergency lights they still had made the shadows on Jasper's face seem deeper and Clarke couldn't help but think that he already looked like he was dead. She tried to push that out of her mind as she continued working.

She felt before she saw Finn crouching down next to her. He handed her something small and metallic. When she took a closer look in the dim light, she realized that it was a metal sculpture of the two-headed deer they'd seen when they'd first landed. Somehow that already seemed like a lifetime ago. She set it next to the light so that she could look at it whenever she wanted to. She hadn't known Finn very long, but he was definitely starting to grow on her. He had a good head on his shoulders and unfortunately that seemed to be a rare commodity right now. She never had many friends growing up, just Wells, mostly. Maybe she could make a few, finally. All it took was the Ark's critical failure and multiple near death experiences. She looked towards the door where Finn had disappeared. _Better late than never._

+

Not long after that, Clarke walked back outside to get some fresh air. She saw Finn watching the fire and the people around it, so she walked over to him.

“He's stable for now, but without medicine...” she trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence. Finn turned back to the fire. Clarke followed his gaze and realized what he was looking at.

“They're taking their wristbands off for food?” She shook her head in disbelief. There was already a small pile of them, discarded and useless by the fire. “No way. I won't do it.” Finn looked at her again. “You won't have to,” he told her with emphasis and she looked back in confusion. He walked over and pulled two sticks that had meat roasting on them out of the fire. Murphy, who was standing right next to the food, put his hand out in front of Finn.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait. You think you play by different rules?”

Clarke held her breath, wondering how this was going to pan out.

“I thought there were no rules,” Finn said, with a stony expression on his face, making it a definite statement, not a question. He walked away from everyone and Clarke followed after. She knew, without seeing, that Bellamy had been watching the whole exchange. She waited for him to call out after them, but it never came. She heard some kind of commotion going on behind them, but she didn't look back.

They circled back around through the trees and came to a ledge that overlooked the fire. They were about eight or ten feet above everyone, so they had a good view but were decidedly not a part of the crowd below. Clarke sat down first and Finn handed her one of the sticks, saying “Princess,” as he sat down next to her. She smirked at him as he settled in. She took a big bite of the panther and allowed herself to relax for the first time since they'd left camp that morning. Things weren't great, but in a lot of ways they were better than they had been when she woke up. Tomorrow they'd try to figure out what was in the poultice the Grounders had put on Jasper's wound and maybe they could save him. If nothing else, at least she'd go to sleep with a full belly and all the oxygen she could want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize it's a little shorter than the other ones, but where it ends just felt like such a good stopping point, I couldn't help it.

Sometime in the night, Jasper took a turn for the worse. He had been moaning, loudly for most of the night, keeping all but the most heavy sleepers awake. Clarke felt like the animosity from the other people on the dropship was physically pressing down on her. She was glad that Jasper was unconscious, not only because of the pain, but also because she wouldn't wish the negativity on him. She could understand everyone's frustration to a certain extent, even if she didn't think the bad will was warranted. Everyone wants to sleep; hell, she wanted to sleep. The ground was exhausting.

A particularly loud “Shut the hell up!” made it's way through the hatch. Clarke brushed a few strands of hair off of Jasper's forehead as he continued to groan.

“Don't listen to them, you're going to make it through this. Promise,” she whispered to him. Whether she was talking to him or really to herself, Clarke wasn't prepared to admit. She took a rag from a pile that had been boiled earlier in the day and began wiping the sweat from his face. She knew this likely meant his temperature was rising and that could mean any number of terrible things.

When she got to his arms, specifically the inside of his right elbow, she stopped. The skin was red and inflamed, and if she didn't know any better, she'd say they were the indicators of being stabbed with a needle. Multiple times. But there were no actual wounds from where any needles had penetrated the skin. “Uhhh, Monty?” she called out. Neither of them had been able to sleep.

“What is it?” he asked, concern and anxiety apparent for his friend.

“Can you come here for a sec?”

When he got over to where Jasper was laid out, she turned his arm so it was in the best light. “What's this?” Clarke asked point blank. Neither she nor Jasper had the time to be tactful about what the marks might mean, and she had overheard the two friends talking about a 'secret stash' at some point, so she knew what answers she might get. Or so she thought.

“Oh, that. Well,” he started. “How do I explain this. Um, have you ever heard of soulmates?”

Clarke felt like her brain short-circuited. The entire world seemed to slow down, just for a moment. Had she heard of soulmates? Logically, Clarke knew Monty couldn't know to what extent she had very much heard of them, but in her exhausted mind it seemed like an absurd question. Clarke suppressed a giggle, not wanting to give Monty cause to dig deeper. No matter how fond she was of him and Jasper, as unliked as she had been on the ground, she couldn't trust them with this particular part of her. There was no telling who would use that information against her and what they might do. While researching back on the Ark she'd read of whole countries that had fallen because an enemy was able to leverage a particular royal's soulmate effectively. An image of Bellamy and his smirk flashed through her mind; _Princess_. She blinked a few times, trying to bring herself back to the moment at hand.

She looked down at Jasper's pale face. Did he have a soulmate? While Jasper obviously wasn't _her_ soulmate, the fact that he _could_ have one was mind boggling to her. She had always just assumed that she was the only one with a soulmate left on the Ark (well, her and whoever her partner was). It had never even occurred to her, or at least not in years, that there might be others like her that were around her age. _Why? It's not like I went around telling people, either_ , she thought. Even before she was in a place where her life was physically in danger almost every second, she found that the older she got that people would sometimes react...strangely to someone with a soulmate, so she'd stopped outright asking. When she really thought about it, though, everything she knew about soulmates as they existed today came from her parents and only a handful of others. _Everyone always said it was rare, but that doesn't mean I'm wholly unique. Of course there could be others._

Meanwhile, Monty had apparently taken Clarke's introspection as ignorance and was giving a very basic explanation on the topic. She pulled herself back into the present. She interrupted whatever Monty was saying, unable to completely conceal her excitement. “So that's why there are no puncture marks from the needles! His soulmate is the one getting injections,” she said, more to herself than to Monty. He briefly ran one of his thumbs over the marks on Jasper's arms. “Yeah, we never could figure out who it was,” he said, almost wistfully. “Even hacked into the medical files to see if we could find out who would be getting regular injections.” Monty smiled slightly, obviously thinking of better times. “But no one who did get them really fit or made sense, you know?” He looked back at Clarke. _All too well_ , she thought, not trying to temper the bitterness for once. “So we figured it must be someone who did it illegally, and to be honest Jasper wasn't really sure if that was something he wanted to deal with yet,” he continued.

All of the doubt and the worries that her mother had had briefly came rushing to the forefront of her mind. She couldn't imagine what it would be like knowing, or being fairly certain, that her soulmate had such demons before even meeting them. She shuddered inwardly, deciding that now was not the time to mull over these renewed emotions and thoughts concerning whoever she was linked to. Jasper was here in front of her, and he needed her help.

She buckled down on her resolve and stood up. “I'm going to get clean water, keep an eye on him,” she said to Monty, beginning the descent to the first level of the dropship. If he thought her departure abrupt, he didn't say anything.

While she was outside, she ran into a girl in passing. The poor thing was young, even more so than the rest of the teenagers she'd met so far. Clarke wracked her brain, trying to remember her name. _Charlotte?_ She was clearly overwhelmed in this very new and frightening world. Clarke did her best to comfort her, and told her about second chances on the ground. Once again she wondered if she even believed the words she was saying.

+

“Hold him still! I need to cut away the infected flesh,” she said to Wells and Finn, both of whom looked uncomfortable. Clarke couldn't blame them as Jasper continued to scream in pain, thrashing around, making it impossible to do anything to him, let alone what she really needed to. She heard Octavia come up the ladder just in time for his eyes to roll in the back of his head, tears streaming down his face. “Stop it! You're killing him!” the younger girl cried out, appearing at Clarke's side. Clarke reached down to feel Jasper's neck. There was a faint pulse, but his skin was hot to the touch.

“She's trying to save his life,” Finn said from where he was putting his weight on Jasper's legs.

“She can't,” Clarke heard in a now familiar deep voice. She didn't have to turn around to know Bellamy had made his way into their chamber of suffering. His tone didn't have the usual condescending tone, she noticed. It was just matter of fact. She clenched her jaw, part of her knowing that he might be right.

She saw Wells get up and move towards where she knew Bellamy was standing. “Back off,” he said quietly. She braced herself for a fight, but it never came. Maybe it was his sister's presence, maybe it was that there was no gullible audience, but whatever the reason, Bellamy was not being his typical charming self.

“We didn't drag him through miles of woods just to let him die,” Clarke said, to Bellamy, to herself, to everyone in the room, to the universe.

“The kid's a goner. If you can't see that, you're deluded,” Bellamy responded, back to his forceful norm. He eased up a bit, adding, “He's making people crazy.”

“Sorry if his life is an inconvenience to you,” Clarke spat, not bothering to turn around to even look at him, “but this isn't the Ark. Down here every life matters.” Lack of sleep and working nonstop since they'd been on the ground had her on edge. She was almost hoping that he would pick a fight so she could blow off some steam. He was one of the few people here that she knew she didn't have to worry about tip toeing around. He'd made how he felt about her perfectly clear since before they'd even set foot outside the dropship.

“Take a look at him,” Bellamy said, not rising to Clarke's bait. “He's a lost cause.”

Clarke swallowed, continuing to press a rag to Jasper's forehead. His body was limp and almost lifeless, but he was still hanging on. She wouldn't give up on him. It was too early. Not everyone was so sure, though. She could see Octavia taking her brother's words to heart next to her. It was almost like she was physically deflating. She felt a small surge of protectiveness for the girl; Clarke wanted to give her and the rest of them a win.

“Octavia I've spent my whole life watching my mother heal people. If I say there's hope, there's hope.”

“This isn't about hope, it's about guts,” Bellamy said, his voice taking on some of that authoritative tone that was starting to really grind her gears. “You don't have the guts to make the hard choices, I do.” _And there it is_ , Clarke said to herself, barely containing her eyeroll. “He's been like this for three days,” he continued. “If he's not better by tomorrow, I'll kill him myself.” At that, Clarke heard him begin climbing back down to the ground level. “Octavia. Let's go.”

Octavia sat up straight and grabbed a rag, wringing it out harder than was necessary.

“I'm staying here.” She glanced at Clarke. She sounded a lot more sure of herself than she looked, Clarke thought. Bellamy said nothing in response and resumed climbing.

“Power hungry, self serving jackass,” Monty said, albeit quietly. “He doesn't care about anyone but himself.” Octavia looked down at the floor at his words. Clarke wasn't sure she fully agreed with Monty, Bellamy clearly cared about at least one other person, even if it was sometimes very misguided.

Monty seemed to notice that what he said might have upset Octavia. “No offense.”

“Yeah, Bellamy is all that,” Finn added. He looked at Clarke, “But he also happens to be right.”

+

They had set out almost immediately to find help for Jasper. That had proved less difficult than getting back to camp.

So far the following day was shaping up to be even less _fun_ than the day before. Finn, Wells, and Clarke had the seaweed they needed to make the tea that would help Jasper but it was taking longer than expected to retrieve. Getting caught by the acid fog had set them back almost twelve hours. Clarke was praying that he was even still alive by the time they got back. If the infection hadn't killed him, it was past Bellamy's deadline. Their only hope, really, was that Octavia and Monty had somehow convinced him to wait for their return or otherwise kept Jasper safe from the rest of the one hundred.

And now Finn wouldn't let up about Wells. Did he think that she wanted to hate her best friend? Of course he had told the Chancellor. If it wasn't him then that only left one other person. And her mother would never do that to her father, would never do that to her. _Right?_

The thoughts in Clarke's head had just begun to start adding up when they heard the scream. They ran into the hunting party as they rushed back towards camp.

“It's Atom,” Charlotte said. “Bellamy's with him. Over there,” she told them, pointing back over a small ridge. “He got caught out in the fog,” one of the others said, all of them looking slightly nauseous. Finn and Wells started to take the others home while Clarke went to find Bellamy and Atom, hoping that maybe there was something she could do. The fact that Bellamy had sent everyone away instead of trying to bring Atom back to the dropship, though, was not a good sign.

As soon as she saw them, Atom laying prostrate and Bellamy next to him, she understood the looks on the others' faces. As she walked up to where Bellamy was crouched, Clarke saw the stark fear on his face. She knelt down next to Atom, looking across his now grotesque body to Bellamy, who couldn't take his eyes off the teen. Bellamy may have been older than everyone else, but he was still very young, she realized for the first time. Barely an adult even. And while he liked to pretend that he knew what he was doing, this confirmed what Clarke had suspected up to this point. Maybe the blustering asshole he was in camp was who he wanted to be, but that wasn't who he was underneath, not really. Why he would want to be that person he was in camp, Clarke couldn't fathom. But confronted with the reality of having to “make the hard choices” as he had put it, he couldn't do it. She finally saw him for what he really was: lost.

“I heard screams,” Clarke said. Atom was gasping for air, muttering words, obviously in excruciating pain.

“Charlotte found him,” Bellamy finally said. “I sent her back to camp.”

Clarke nodded and looked up and down Atom's body. She had known from across the clearing that there was no saving him, but she had to be sure. As she took in his burns, she knew that even if they were on the Ark, she doubted there would have been much they could've done. Just ease his suffering before he went. She looked at Bellamy and shook her head.

He nodded and looked back down at Atom, resigned. He had a knife in his hand, but didn't move. She watched as the muscles in his jaw worked and he swallowed. Hard.

Clarke didn't hesitate. She had been around death in the medicenter and she knew without a doubt what had to be done; that it would truly be a mercy for Atom. She took a breath to steady herself and brace for the task.

“Ok,” she softly spoke to Atom. “I'm going to help you,” she said as stroked his hair, doing her best impression of her mother, trying to do what she could to soothe him. She began humming as she gently took the knife from Bellamy's hand. He didn't resist. She continued to hum even as she punctured Atom's neck, still stroking his hair as his life began to fade. She didn't know if it brought him any comfort if she was honest, but she hoped it did.

+

The rest of the trek home was mostly silent. When they all finally made it back, Clarke's immediate thoughts were of Jasper. She and Finn began gathering the things she would require to treat him. Behind her, she heard Bellamy say “Get Clarke whatever she needs.” She guessed he had had his fill of death for one day.

Octavia came out of the dropship, and Clark's heart dropped. She tried to distract the girl, take her to the side to tell her about Atom. Clarke knew that if she were in Octavia's shoes, she wouldn't want the last image she had of Atom to be what he was now. But Octavia pulled away, stubborn. She marched over to where Bellamy was standing. Clarke heard the pain in both the siblings' voices as they briefly argued. Octavia fled the campfire back into the dropship, leaving Bellamy with the body. His pain turned to anger as he turned on Murphy over something he said about Octavia. From what Clarke had seen of John up until that point, he probably deserved it. Bellamy was an ass, but Murphy had an unmistakable mean streak. The last thing she saw as she turned to go check on Jasper was Bellamy staring into the fire, alone.

+

The next twelve hours were probably the most tumultuous that Clarke had ever experienced. The elation of staving off Jasper's death almost made the discovery of Wells's worse. She knew that realistically, because of the Skybox, that it had only been a few days that she and Wells had spent together since her father had been floated. She also knew that she would regret the way she treated him, the precious time that she had wasted with him, for the rest of her life.

She'd just fallen asleep when they'd come to tell her what happened. She couldn't even remember who it was, in hindsight. That whole memory seemed to be in a haze. A grounder killed him while he was outside camp on watch, whoever it was that was supposed to take his place had found him. He'd probably been dead for hours.

She had stumbled out of the dropship, where she'd made a makeshift bed next to Jasper in case he needed her suddenly. They'd moved his body back inside camp by the time she staggered to where he lay, still bleary eyed. She fell to her knees next to him, his body already cold.

“No, no, no, no, no, no....” Clarke pressed both her hands to her mouth to stop herself from openly sobbing. Even now she was acutely aware of everyone who was watching. _Weakness_ , that insidious voice inside her whispered. She half gulped, half gasped a giant breath of air to push down her tears. She wasn't sure how long she sat there, beside him, rocking slightly. She thought about all the things he would never get to do. He would never see the ocean, never see snow. Never find the love of his life, never have a kid. Selfishly, she thought about the things in her life she wouldn't be able to share with him. She'd always imagined he'd be Uncle Wells someday, that he'd be the godfather to her child. He'd never meet her soulmate, and they'd only know him from the stories she'd tell.

Wells had always been there, even when she'd hated him. That he just suddenly _wasn't_ was incomprehensible to her.

“It's not fair,” she breathed, in the predawn light. The words felt indescribably inadequate for the tightness in her chest. He was the best of them, not just of the people on the ground, but all of humanity. He was always putting others first, always looking out for those less fortunate. She realized she was clutching his shirt and relinquished her grip. Randomly she remembered telling him that he was her soulmate, too. _And now he's dead._

Clarke couldn't help but think there was a part of her that went with him.

+

By the time that they put Wells in the ground, in a grave next to the one he'd helped dig for Atom, Clarke had no more tears left in her. Under the guise of checking on Jasper, she'd shut herself in the dropship while his final home was being dug. After locking the hatch, a torrent of emotion came rushing out. Anger, bitterness, sadness, so many she felt like she couldn't keep up. Most were for Wells, but she knew some of it was for other reasons. Her father, still an open wound, and the loss of her relationship with her mother, which she knew would never be the same, if she could ever bring herself to forgive her. It hadn't taken long for the volunteers to finish, but by the time Monty came to get her, she was, somehow, even more drained.

When the hole was filled and everyone else had left, Finn squeezed her shoulder and asked if she wanted him to stay with her. She shook her head, too tired to even say no. He just nodded, seeming to understand, and left her to grieve.

She looked at Wells's unmarked grave next to the other three. She couldn't even remember the first two's names. Clarke suddenly couldn't stand the idea that Wells didn't have a marker, something to distinguish him from the others. He had friends, people who cared about him, he would never be forgotten. Ever.

Vaguely, she recollected images of cemeteries from before the bombs fell. She looked around, but couldn't find anything to serve as a headstone. She could feel a wave of rising panic when out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a few pretty flowers. Blue and white. She gingerly dug them up with her bare hands and replanted them next to Wells. It would do for now, until she found something better. She carefully packed the dirt around the blossoms, hoping they'd be hardy enough to survive the move. Wells would have known, he was always much more interested in and better at Earthskills than she was.

And just like that, her relief at providing the flowers was short lived. Nothing she could ever do would feel like enough of a repayment for everything he had done for her. Unconsciously, she fisted her hands in the dirt. Suddenly hit with the full weight of the grief, of being on her own in such a new and terrifying place, Clarke struggled to breathe. This wasn't like the loss she'd felt earlier, which had been shocking and sharp. No, this grief was heavy and was settling in her, as if knowing that it would be in her for a long, long time. She forced herself to take deep breaths, to calm down, like she'd seen her mother instruct patients during a panic attack. A painful hick-up barreled it's way out of her as she tried to focus on the flowers she'd just planted.

She felt hollow and brittle. Some part of her knew that she was sleep deprived and probably dehydrated. She didn't care. For the first time in her life, she felt truly alone. Even her father's death hadn't felt like this. She'd been completely isolated in the Skybox, but she'd never been lonely. She'd had her mother on her side at least. Now, she couldn't imagine speaking to her mother at all. Clarke wasn't sure if she could ever forgive Abby for her father's death, not to mention indirectly (and unknowingly) stealing the last days she had with Wells. No, the only person she had left that she could really trust was an atmosphere away and she didn't even know who they could possibly be.

Clarke rubbed her arm where she knew bruises had formed from Bellamy pulling her out of the pit. She'd been surprised at the number that had shown up, almost like he'd used two hands when she knew he hadn't. Clarke wondered what her soulmate thought of them, it'd been the first time in a while that she'd had anything larger than a marble. Her heart clenched unexpectedly. She _missed_ them. Which was completely illogical, given she'd never met them. She had always known that there was an emptiness in her life where her soulmate should have been, but she had never _longed_ for them. Not like this. Her entire support system was gone or as good as gone and Clarke could feel despair lurking at the edge of her mind. _Where are you? Why aren't you here, with me?_ Unfair, she knew, but she allowed herself the thought in a moment of self pity. _I need you._

“Clarke?”

She turned at the sound of her name, brought back from the brink of darkness. Standing a few feet away from her, at the boundary of camp was Bellamy. He had a look on his face that may have been sympathy, but in that moment she couldn't bring herself to care.

“You shouldn't be out here alone, it's not safe,” he said to her, not moving. She faced the woods, and Wells again, letting out a breath. She relaxed her fingers, releasing the soil, and slowly stood up. Before turning around and facing whatever problems they had, she took one last moment for Wells.

“May we meet again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UGH I LOVE WELLS. I constantly wonder what would be going on if Wells hadn't died. I wanted to show some of (what I imagined) Clarke's reaction would be, since the show goes from his death scene straight to her standing over his grave. Anyways! Let me know what y'all thought! Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!

The rest of the day went by in a blur. Clarke knew that everyone was tip toeing around her, could feel them treating her like she might break. They couldn't afford to not include her in planning, though, so when a few hours later Bellamy came to the dropship to get her, Finn, and Monty, she followed him to his tent.

“We need to build a wall,” Bellamy said, as soon as everyone was inside and facing each other. “The grounders may have the advantage of knowing the area, but we can at least make it harder for them to slit our throats.” His eyes immediately slid to Clarke, “Sorry, I, uh, didn't mean-”

“It's fine,” she cut him off. “That's a good idea.” Everyone else nodded and murmured in agreement. Bellamy seemed visibly relieved, and she wondered if he had expected resistance or if he was simply scared and worried like everyone else. She certainly didn't think he was concerned about causing her more pain by bringing up Wells. _He's probably glad Wells is gone, another Alpha Station elite getting what they deserve_ , the cynical part of her thought. Clarke realized she was missing conversation.

“We should rotate who goes out on hunting parties with cutting down timber; that's hard labor and bound to wear people out,” Finn suggested. Monty's brow creased in thought before asking “But would people actually do it? It's not exactly 'whatever the hell we want'.”

Bellamy made a noise half way between a laugh and a grunt. Clarke looked at him and then Monty, before speaking up. “I think people will understand that this is for everyone's benefit. We just need to talk to them, appeal to their-”.

This time it was Bellamy who cut her off: “You just let me worry about talking to them, Princess.” He smirked at her, but there was no malice behind it. She just sighed and nodded, very much willing for him to take the role of leader for this. She wasn't sure how much talking she would be able to handle. Particularly to people, _kids_ who couldn't care less that her best friend had just been murdered.

When no one else had anything to add, Finn brought the unofficial meeting to a close.

“Ok, I'll go with the next hunting party, I've found a few places that I think would be good for traps. Bellamy, you've got getting started on the wall?”

Bellamy's face dropped as he turned from looking at Clarke to Finn. Clarke, once again lost in her own thoughts, didn't notice. “Yeah, Spakewalker, I got it.” There was suddenly palpable tension in the air and Clarke was too tired to deal with it. “If we're done, I need to get back to Jasper.” She looked back and forth between the two of them, briefly giving them both a chance to voice opposition. When neither did, she turned to leave.

Monty held the flap of the tent entrance up for her so she was the first one out. She shielded her eyes to the sun and noticed a pretty brunette girl around her age standing to the side of the tent, shifting nervously. “Did you need something?” Clarke borderline snapped, not in the mood to waste time.

“Oh, um. Is Bellamy...?” she trailed off, looking slightly scolded as her eyes searching the entryway to the tent. At that moment, Finn came out, Bellamy following. As soon as he saw her, his face broke out into a dazzling smile, turning on all his charisma. “Well, hi there.” _How does he even know what she's here for?_ Clarke thought. Then again, she couldn't think of much else the girl _could_ be waiting outside Bellamy's tent for. She'd seen the various girls going in and out over the last few days. She sighed and started back towards the dropship. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the two of them talking, the girl fiddling with her hair as Bellamy touched her arm, assumably asking her to wait in the tent while he went to rouse the troops.

Deep inside her, she felt something like a string being pulled. But with the emotion and events of the last day, last week, last few months, it struck her as being very far away. Like she was adrift in a boat and whatever that string was, it was at the bottom of the lake underneath her. And she didn't have the energy to even look over the edge to see if she could make it out. So she ignored it, using the last of what energy she did have to climb the ladder in the dropship, letting out a small exhale when she saw Jasper was still breathing. _At least something is going our way_ , she thought before laying down and slipping into a dreamless sleep.

+

Clarke woke up the next day, having slept for over twelve hours, she realized, based on the light coming from the hatch. Jasper was still asleep, but seemed to be peaceful. She gently laid her hand on his fore head. He was right in the normal range, much to her relief. She eased herself up, and walked over to the ladder, doing her best not to make too much noise.

Looking around when she made it outside, she was somewhat surprised to see people working. Some were chopping down trees, others building some makeshift shelters. She saw Monty sitting near the fire, eating. The idea of trying to get any food down was anathema, but she didn't want to be by herself if she could help it. She walked over and sat down next to him.

“Hey, Clarke. How's Jasper?” he fired at her before she could get comfortable. She shifted her legs until she found a position that she could tolerate, at least for the moment.

“He's fine. For now,” she said, doing her best to be reassuring. “As long as there's no more surprises, he should make a full recovery.” Clarke clenched her jaw. She sounded too much like her mother for her taste.

Monty suddenly had a confused look on his face, undoubtedly due to the look on her own face. She sighed and smiled, attempting to send the right message. “In my professional opinion, that is.”

He nodded. They sat without talking for a few minutes while he chewed and she watched the other people moving around camp. He was the one to break the comfortable silence.

“Thanks. For everything. I don't what would have happened if you hadn't been here.” He was staring at the cooked rabbit leg quarter he was holding in his hands. She put her hand on his arm and he looked up at her.

“You and Jasper are my friends, Monty. I don't know where I'd be right now, either, if you guys weren't here.” She squeezed his arm gently, trying to convey the depth of what she was feeling. He smiled at her and said, “Maybe we can survive down here, together.”

+

Later that night she and Octavia were sitting with Jasper. Clarke was attempting to identify some plants she'd gathered earlier in the day and Octavia was helping Jasper clean with a rag. He was still too weak to go to the river to bathe, but the smell from laying in his own sweaty clothes for a few days was becoming unbearable in the small space that was the dropship. Fortunately, he and Monty were around the same size and he had graciously switched his own clean attire with Jasper's, taking them to wash while Octavia dealt with his person.

Clarke was examining the vein structure on two different leaves when she heard Jasper joke, “Octavia, are you sure you're not my soulmate?”

She immediately stopped and looked over to where the other girl was dunking a rag into a bowl of water. She was interested to see what Octavia's reaction would be. Outside of the conversation she'd had with Monty, it had been a long time since she'd heard other people's thoughts on soulmates.

Octavia barked out a laugh. “Pretty sure I would have noticed if I had a soulmate, Jasper. Bellamy has known since he was little that he has one.” She brought the rag to his back, rubbing back and forth.

Clarke stilled and dropped her gaze to the floor, trying to hide the unbridled shock she knew was on her face. _Bellamy, too? Just how many of us are there???_ She did her best to inconspicuously look over to the other two teenagers.

“Does he know who it is?” Jasper asked, now serious.

Octavia dropped her hand, suddenly sad. “No. On the Ark, even if he _had_ figured it out, he wouldn't have told them. It was too risky...” she trailed off, but Clarke knew what she was alluding to. _Too risky with Octavia._ She couldn't imagine how much that must've weighed on the other girl.

Jasper shifted slightly. “Well, we're on the ground now, anything is possible.”

Octavia picked her hand back up, resuming her task. “You're right. For you and Bell both.”

+

Unable to sleep a few hours later, her mind wandered back to Bellamy having a soulmate. If his soulmate was still on the Ark, how could he possibly want everyone left on it to die? Or at the very least be able to live with it if they did. She wondered for the first time if any of them would start to feel the effects of oxygen deprivation as their soulmates stayed trapped on a dying space station. She hoped they wouldn't find out. The last thing she needed was both her and Bellamy going blind or worse. She squeezed her eyes shut harder than they already were as she could feel a headache forming. There was still so much she didn't know about how the soulmate bond worked. It had the power to affect their lives in such unexpected ways it was almost overwhelming.

She thought about Octavia earlier, carrying the burden of Bellamy's loneliness. If he'd lived Octavia's entire life thinking he'd never be able to really be close with his soulmate (if he even found them), maybe it wasn't such a far leap that he had resigned himself to believing he could live without them. Clarke tried to think what it might be like if she had found her person but was unable to actually form any sort of bond with them. At best, she'd always wonder and at worse, it could be agony, depending on the situation. _I think I'd rather not know_ , she thought.

And not just that, but up until Octavia was discovered, meeting his soulmate could've meant the loss of both his sister and his mother. That was obviously not a chance Bellamy was willing to take. If someone had told her she could keep Wells and her father safe by giving up her soulmate, a complete unknown and stranger, she would've done it in a heartbeat.

Thinking of Wells brought her attention back to the weight in her chest. The unwanted image of him lying dead on the ground seared into her brain. She sighed and rolled over and tried not to fall down the rabbit hole of things she could've done differently since landing on the ground. Mentally, she began to list and catalog the plants that she'd found and had yet to find, both beneficial and not, until she fell asleep.

+

A few days passed by mostly uneventful. Clarke had managed to put together a makeshift maker for Wells's grave using pieces of scrap from the dropship. Bellamy had successfully convinced enough people to help with the wall. Monty hadn't cracked communication with the Ark yet, but he was close, or so he said, at least.

Clarke was bandaging up some unfortunate fifteen year old when she felt it. Suddenly out of no where, a sharp burning sensation started on her right hand, specifically beginning with her pinkie and ring fingers and going down past her wrist. Distracted, she nodded as the kid thanked her and got up to get back to doing whatever it was that he was doing. _Hello, soulmate_ , she thought. She looked down and saw what definitely appeared to be some sort of burn forming. She wondered if her soulmate would experience any blistering, hoping to herself that they wouldn't.

Atom briefly flashed in her mind before she could push it away. She forcefully shut the morbid memory out and thought about her soulmate instead. She'd gotten better at distracting herself since Wells's death. _Happy thoughts_ , she told herself. She pondered what they might have done to manage this big of a burn. Maybe spill some boiling water? Or perhaps they did something dangerous for their job? The Ark was always in need of repairs, it was literally falling apart. If they were an engineer like her father, then it could be anything really. Whatever it was, she hoped it wasn't a hazard they normally experienced. She felt a pang in her chest as she thought about them in peril daily.

She hadn't been thinking of her soulmate much the last few days. Between trying to simply survive the earth's environment and fortifying the camp against the grounders, there hadn't really been time to think of anything else. A part of her suspected that it had something to do with Wells being gone, too. It was easier not to think too deeply about the people she cared about for now. Not to mention it was hard to distinguish what bruises and injuries were hers and which ones were theirs these days. The ground hadn't been exactly gentle. She hummed to herself quietly and she grabbed something to wrap her hand up with. Even if she didn't have to worry about it opening up and exposing to infection, she still didn't want to bump or rub it.

A few hours later, the hunting party came back looking a little worse for the wear. From across the main clearing, Clarke, standing in the dropship, counted them as they came through the gate. She heaved a sigh of relief when the last one came through, but the relief was short lived when she realized who it was that came through at the end. Bellamy and Miller were supporting a younger kid as he made his way over to her, hobbling with some as of yet undetermined injury. She looked at him, trying to remember his name. _Cris, possibly?_ She still had a hard time keeping them all straight sometimes.

“Acid fog,” Bellamy said, snapping Clarke out of her thoughts as they brought Cris up the ramp. “On the best place possible,” he joked. Before Clarke could inquire about where exactly that was, Miller cut in with: “His feet.” Clarke looked down and saw that the kid had boots that were kept together with some sort of twine wrapped around them because they were quite literally falling apart. “Ah,” she said, knowing that they would have done little to protect from much of anything, let alone acid fog. She'd have to have a discussion with Bellamy later about making sure people who were sent outside the camp regularly had proper clothing at the very least. They may not have much, but they could be smart with what they did have. She stepped to the side and pointed to an empty bunk. Bellamy and Miller deposited Cris, careful to avoid his feet. Clarke had moved to what had become her work station and pulled out some moonshine Finn had found in an abandoned bunker. As she was rationing it out (she wanted to give Cris some to help dull the pain of disinfecting the open sores), Bellamy came up next to her.

“Let me know how he is after?” he asked. She looked up at him as she was pouring the hooch. “What happened?” she asked, noticing that he looked pale. His freckles stood out more than usual. He sighed and glanced over at Miller, who was trying to gently remove Cris's shoes. Bellamy took out his knife and nudged Miller in the shoulder, offering it to him handle first. “Might be easier to just cut 'em off. They're worthless anyways.” Miller nodded and took the knife.

“Wait,” Clarke interjected. She grabbed what moonshine she deemed she could spare and handed it to Cris. “Bottoms up,” she said, trying to sound encouraging. He downed it, and Miller got to work. “So?” Clarke said, looking to Bellamy again. He motioned her towards the other side of the dropship. “Nothing much to tell. We heard a horn, lucky for us, and made a run for one of the caves. Cris was the last one in and tripped. His feet got the worst of it before we could drag him inside.” Clarke nodded and looked over to where Cris was. He had laid down with his feet dangling off the edge of the bunk, giving Miller better access to his feet. One of this shoes was already off and Miller was eyeballing the other. “Tell her about your hand, Blake,” he said, not taking his eyes off what he was doing. Clarke looked back up at Bellamy, raising her eyebrows.

Bellamy cleared his throat and stuck his hand out. “I was the one closest to the cave entrance, so I got a little bit of it when I grabbed him. Nothing to worry about, I've had worse,” he added, almost sounding sheepish to Clarke. She took his hand, and turned it over. There were already a few blisters forming, she saw, but nothing that wouldn't heal. The worst was going to be worrying about infection. “Hold on,” she said.

She pulled out some of the salve that she'd made with some of the knowledge they'd gotten from collectively pooling what everyone could remember of Earthskills. She began lathering his hand and after she was sure she'd coated all of the exposed areas at least once, she reached for the bandages. “Clarke. Save these for people who need them, I'm fine,” Bellamy said, half-heartedly. They both knew that she wasn't going to be deterred. They still didn't particularly like each other, but they'd begrudgingly come to respect each other, or at least she thought they had. He'd made fewer jabs at her expense the last few days and had actually gone out of his way to be helpful a handful of times.

As she was wrapping his hand, it occurred to her that this was the second time she had done it that day. She looked again at exactly where his burn was on his hand and almost dropped the bandage she was using.

Bellamy, who had been looking out the door to the camp, turned, giving her his full attention. “Everything okay, Princess?” he asked, as she was examining his burn much more closely. _No_ , she thought, even if she knew precisely what the burn meant. _This can't be_. She stared at his hand, utterly unable to process what she had just discovered. She wanted to deny it, but she was looking at the same exact burn that had appeared on her hand just a few hours ago. “Clarke?” she heard Bellamy saying, but it sounded as if he was underwater. “Clarke, you're uh, starting to freak me out.” She came crashing back to the moment. “Wh-when did you say this all happened?” she asked, grasping for anything that she could to possibly deny what she already knew.

Bellamy looked at Miller. Both of them had something akin to bewilderment on their faces. “Maybe a few hours ago?” Bellamy said. Miller nodded, “Yeah, we came straight back to camp once the fog had cleared.” He glanced between Bellamy and Clarke before turning his attention back to Cris. It was all Clarke could do to nod and begin wrapping Bellamy's hand again. She did her best to keep her hands steady, but she could tell from the way he was looking at her that she wasn't completely successful. When she was done, Miller had finished as well. He asked if she needed anything else from him and she just shook her head. Bellamy lingered as she began putting the same poultice she'd used on him onto Cris's burns.

“Clarke?”

She looked up at him, still reeling from the realization that she'd made. He had a look on his face that she couldn't read. “What?” she asked after a few long seconds had passed. She noticed he was holding his injured hand with his left. He looked down at her right hand, which was also bandaged.. “What happened to your hand?”

She glanced down to where he was looking. She could feel her throat getting tight and it felt like the walls were closing in on her. “I, uh, burned it,” she heard herself say. “While I was boiling the bandages earlier.” That was a plausible lie, wasn't it? She felt sort of bad, lying to him, to her- no. She wasn't ready to think about it yet. She needed time to process, away from everyone.

His face was still unreadable when he said, “You should be more careful, Princess.” She didn't trust her voice so she just nodded as she went back to Cris and his injuries. The poor kid had passed out.

When she looked back up, Bellamy was gone.

+

As she cleaned up her tools and closed up various hodge-podged-together containers that evening, Clarke had all but convinced herself that she was overreacting. It had to just be a coincidence. There was no way her soulmate, the person that she was most compatible with in existence, was _Bellamy Blake_. He _hated_ her. Ok, maybe not hate, not anymore, but they certainly weren't friends. She hesitated to even use the word friend _ly_. He had almost dropped her to her death a week ago! _No. There's simply no way_ , she repeated to herself.

 _He does have a soulmate, though_ , the traitorous part of her argued.

 _One he doesn't want_ , she argued back. But she knew that was unfair. From what Octavia had revealed, it was an impossible situation, and young Bellamy had done what he felt he'd had to to protect his family. There was no evidence that he didn't _want_ his soulmate, just that he'd deemed them an unnecessary risk.

None of this speculation mattered, really, since she decidedly was not his soulmate. And if she was? Well, maybe her mother had the right idea, as much as she hated to admit. She didn't have the luxury of casually dating and getting to know him slowly like she would have on the Ark. The parade of girls that he had indicated he wasn't interested in that sort of thing anyway. It was safer for her and everyone in camp if she kept her distance. Once everyone was settled and they'd made contact with the Ark, she'd do some more digging, perhaps ask Octavia a few more questions.

Yes, that's what she would do. That's what she did best after all, research and study, observe and learn. This was no different than when she'd been finding out about soulmates in general. Not that she thought he was her soulmate, but even so, knowing more about him couldn't hurt. It would unquestionably make it easier to deal with him if she understood him more, and that could only be a benefit.

Finishing up her nightly cleaning routine, she quickly checked on Cris. Seeing that he was still completely unconscious, she set a water canteen next to him in case he woke up and set out for the bonfire, and dinner, more at ease than she'd been in hours.

Finn, who had returned from a solo hunting trip, waved her over to where he and a few others were sitting. He handed her some berries and meat of unknown origin (she'd lost track of the different kind of small animals they'd been devouring).

“Heard it was an exciting day?” he asked her as she took her first bite.

She looked at him while she chewed, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. She wished more than anything that Wells was there. She desperately wanted someone she could trust and talk to about everything that was going on. But he wasn't. So she settled for:

“You have no idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this is late, but 2020 just continues to be the worst! Thank you so much for your patience!

The next morning found Clarke visiting Wells. While she was glad that things around camp were improving and everyone was taking surviving on the ground as something that needed to be actively worked on and not just passively achieved, it meant that there were very few places she could go to quietly think. Not to mention there was always someone that needed medical attention since they'd started cutting down trees. She crouched down next to the flowers she'd planted that first day and breathed in the cool early morning air. While still staying alert, she was on the other side of the new wall after all, Clarke allowed her mind to wander to the most pressing subjects.

Her thoughts couldn't stay focused on one thing, though. It was a constant war between Wells, the grounders and surviving, her mother, Bellamy. Since she'd woken up that morning from her not very good night's rest, she'd been going over every conversation she'd had with him and that she'd had with Octavia, trying to piece together as much as she could. She couldn't remember any time since they'd been on the ground that he'd been injured enough to come to her, and she hadn't had any problems either, which meant there would have been no clear indication up until yesterday that they were...

Clarke's train of thought was broken by the sound of someone coming up behind her. She shifted her weight, reminding herself briefly that her makeshift knife was in her left boot. The footsteps came closer and she exhaled. Grabbing the knife, she spun and launched herself upwards, only to be met with Finn.

“You shouldn't be out here alone. What if I was a grounder?” he asked. Clarke relaxed and put her knife in her belt. His face softened before saying, “They got Wells just outside the wall.”

“Says the guy who spent another night exploring the woods by himself.” While Clarke appreciated Finn's concern, it was exasperating. She didn't need his reminder of where and how Wells was killed while she was standing on his literal grave.

“Yeah, but I'm reckless. And irresponsible,” he replied, his tone more lighthearted. Looking at her, he shifted his weight. “I got you something.”

She looked up, unsure if she was really in the mood for...whatever this was. Finn raised his empty hands, and in the blink of an eye, using some sort of trick, made a pencil appear in the left one. Clarke could feel her eyes bulging with surprise.

“Where did you get this?!” She took the pencil with both hands, holding the rare utensil with an almost reverence.

“The Art Supply Store,” he joked. Clarke started to smile, but then lowered the pencil as she felt a lump forming in her throat.

“You know, when we were kids, Wells was always giving me ink, charcoal, just anything I could draw with really.” She looked at Finn, wanting to tell him, anyone about Wells and all that he'd done for her. She almost smiled, thinking about when they were younger, when the most pressing issue was convincing their parents to let them explore old parts of the Ark.

“I found out later that he was trading his own stuff to give it to me.” She paused, the now familiar ache of grief there, as always, but something new was accompanying it: shame.

“He didn't want me to know that either.” She looked down, unable to meet Finn's eyes. “He let me hate him so that I wouldn't hate my mother.” She stopped, unable to continue for the anger that was beginning to roil up.

“I know,” Finn said quietly.

“My mother killed my father,” Clarke uttered out loud for the first time. Finn said nothing. “I just wish there was something I could do,” she said, more to herself than anything. “To tell her I know, to make her feel what I'm-”. An idea came to her then. Still holding the pencil, she made her way to the dropship.

“Hey, where're you going?” Finn called out from behind her.

“To make her feel it.”

By the time she made it to where Monty was working on their communications, she had completely made up her mind. Finn followed closely behind her.

“Monty, you need a working wrist band, right? Take mine.” Monty looked up, confusion on his face. “Are you sure? They'll think you're dead.”

“Yep. I'm sure.” She thrust her hand out in front of the quiet teenager. He took her hand, turning it over to look at each side.

“You should probably sit down, this could take a few minutes.” She considered his advice and took a seat while he grabbed a few tools. He came over and began to poke and prod at the band, doing what exactly, she wasn't sure. She looked over to where Finn was standing, his hair a mess. She knew that he was judging her for wanting to make her mother suffer some, and maybe part of her agreed with him, but that darker side of her wouldn't settle for the high road this time. Besides, if Monty did what he said he could with the band, her mother wouldn't be suffering for long.

Clarke felt a sudden release of pressure as the wrist band popped open.

“Yes! I did it!” Monty cried, taking the still glowing band over to the wall where he'd been working to contact the Ark. She rubbed her now naked wrist, noticing that there were healed puncture marks and around them the green hues of old bruising. _Huh_ , she thought. It hadn't ever hurt, but then she was unconscious when they'd put it on her.

After a brief talk and update with Monty, plus a small lecture from Finn, she decided to go looking for herbs and other useful plants near the lake. As she was walking out of camp, she saw Bellamy across the clearing watching her. She felt a shiver go down her spine. Unable to hold his gaze, she turned towards the gate and refused to look back. She tightened her grip on the bag slung over her shoulder and resolved to avoid him as much as possible for the next few days. With any luck, she wouldn't have to talk to him, soulmate or no. Setting her eyes on the green woods beyond she told herself for the umpteenth time that day, _No, not soulmate._

+

Her day only went downhill from there. Upon returning to camp, she found Jasper in a state of panic. Curled in on himself up against the wall inside the dropship, Octavia was doing her best to calm him down by quietly talking to him. It reminded Clarke of talking to a spooked animal. She set her bag down and together the two of them managed to wind him down from their attempt to venture outside the camp's perimeter. She wondered if he would ever really get over this trauma. It was something most grown adults would struggle with, and they were all already severely messed up from growing up on the Ark. _Floating people is_ _ **not**_ _normal_ , she told herself, _or at least it shouldn't be._

“Clarke! You're back, good.” She turned around at the sound of her name, already knowing from the deep baritone who it was. Bellamy stood at the top of the dropship ramp, looking at her with a strange expression on his face. Her heart stopped just for a moment, afraid of what he might say. She wasn't ready to confront him, not as anything other than Bellamy The Adversary, not yet.

“The three of you come on, I don't want to talk about this in the open,” and with that he turned around and walked down the ramp. She looked at Octavia, wondering if she had any insight.

“He's right, let's go,” she turned and pulled Jasper to his feet. “It'd be better if you just saw.”

The three of them made their way to one of the tents, where Bellamy was already waiting at a piece of the dropship hull masquerading as a table. _So much for avoidance as a strategy,_ she huffed to herself, walking towards him. All thoughts of Bellamy flew out of her head once she realized what was sitting on the table, however. She stopped, rooted the ground. She looked up and saw Jasper and Octavia staring at her. There was sympathy in their gazes but also expectation. They didn't know what to do and they were hoping she would. She glanced at Bellamy, who was also looking at her as well, but with a different expression. His features weren't as harsh as they normally were, and the relief that she felt at his not being, well, adversarial surprised her. She swallowed and calmly walked over to deal with what she knew were Wells's severed fingers and what looked like a knife.

Doing her best not to look directly at what was once a part of her best friend, she grabbed the tool instead. Turning it over in her hand and examining it, her heart sank.

“This knife was made from metal from the dropship,” she said incredulous.

“What do you mean?” Jasper asked, reflecting how the entire camp would be reacting, she knew.

“Who else knows about this?” Bellamy asked quietly. “No one,” Octavia answered, eyes cast downward to the appendages. She looked up at her brother. “We brought it straight here.”

“Clarke?” Jasper asked.

She struggled momentarily, trying to get out the words to what she didn't want to believe.

“It means the grounders didn't kill Wells.” She could feel anger starting to bubble up inside of her for the second time that day. She looked from the knife up to Bellamy. “It was one of us.”

“So there's a murderer in the camp?” Jasper asked, voice wavering.

“There's more than one murderer in this camp,” Bellamy answered, “this isn't news, we need to keep it quiet.” He crossed his arms, looking nervous. For the first time since the beginning of the discovery, Clarke wondered why she was there. Why did Bellamy bring her to the tent and not one of his goons? She glanced at Octavia and Jasper, who'd made the grim discovery. _They would've told me anyways, he's just trying to contain any damage I might cause to his hold on the camp,_ she reasoned with herself. She didn't care. Wells deserved more than this.

She moved towards the entrance flap of the tent, but before she could get there, Bellamy stepped in front of her.

“Get out of my way, Bellamy.” She set her jaw, waiting for him to move.

“Clarke, be smart about this. Look at what we've achieved- the wall, the patrols. Like it or not, thinking the grounders killed Wells is good for us.”

“Oh good for _you_ , you mean,” she argued. “What? Keep people afraid and they'll work for you? Is that it?” This was getting a little too Machiavellian for Clarke.

“Yeah, that's it,” Bellamy said, matter of fact, not denying it. “But it's good for all of us. Fear of the grounders is building that wall,” he continued, calmly. “Besides, what're you going to do- just walk out there and ask the killer to step forward? You don't even know who's knife that is.” He was being very reasonable, if Clarke was being honest with herself, but her heart was hurting too much to listen to her head.

“Oh, really? J.M.,” she said as she turned the knife over, showing him the initials carved into the inside handle of the knife. “John Murphy. The people have a right to know.”

Bellamy's face fell as she pushed past him to leave the tent. He didn't get in her way.

+

Five minutes later and everything was out of control. Held back by the crowd, by the _mob_ , powerless once again, all Clarke could do was look on in horror as Murphy was strung up by the neck, gagged and bound. This was absolutely not what she had wanted. _Then what_ _ **did**_ _you want? You let your emotion cloud your reason_ , her brain posited. She spun around, looking for the last person she wanted to depend on, but who clearly knew these people better than she did. She spotted Bellamy a few feet behind her. He was in some sort of stupor. If Clarke didn't know any better she'd say he looked afraid.

“You can stop this!” she cried, shoving him, trying to shake him out of whatever he was in. “They'll listen to you!” He looked at her and looked back up at Murphy, swaying back and forth as chaos and screaming surrounded them. Clarke felt as if the two of them were in the eye of a hurricane, as she waited for him to weigh his options and make a decision. Somewhere in the back of her mind, that insidious voice whispered “ _soulmate, soulmate, soulmate_ ” over and over again against the ringing that had started in her ears.

“Bellamy! You should do it.” Mbege yelled, breaking the trance they were in. “Bell-a-my! Bell-a-my! Bell-a-my!” he chanted, with others joining in. Bellamy looked from Clarke to Murphy, seemingly on a precipice. She wouldn't let him do this, she couldn't. For his sake and hers.

“I saw you in the woods with Atom,” she pleaded, almost in tears by this point. “I know you're not a killer.” He looked from her back up to Murphy's bloodied face. “Bellamy, don't do this!” Resignation came over his features as he stepped towards Murphy. “Don't. Bellamy!” She was all but begging on her knees. He put his foot on the stool holding Murphy up as Clarke tried to physically pull him back, but he was much stronger than she was and kept her at bay easily with one arm. And then he kicked the stool.

“No, Bellamy, no!” she wailed. She pushed him in her anger and sorrow. How could he do this?

“This is on you, Princess, you should've kept your mouth shut,” he yelled at her, buffeting her shoves and keeping her away from Murphy. His face was less than an handwidth from hers and she could almost feel the hatred pouring off of him. _Princess_.

Finn suddenly materialized by her side.

“What the hell are you doing?! Cut him down,” he screamed, forcing his way to John. Mbege pulled out a shiv, taking Finn by surprise.

At this precise moment, Charlotte's high pitched voice pierced through the cacophony.

“Enough! Everyone stop! Ok? Murphy didn't kill Wells!” The crowd instantly quieted, everyone turning to look at the youngest among them. “I did.”

There were audible gasps as Clarke spun towads Bellamy, who was still standing inches from her, and pulled his hatchet from his belt. He made no move to stop her as she cut Murphy down, his limp body collapsing to the ground.

+

Not long after, Finn and Clarke were taking Charlotte out the backside of Bellamy's tent and into the woods. Clarke could hear Bellamy trying to reason with Murphy. She wished him luck, for all their sakes, no matter how she might be feeling about him in that moment. She didn't have the luxury to process everything that had just happened while they were running for Charlotte's life, and she dreaded when they would be able to stop. She didn't want to face what their camp had become, and the dichotomy that was Bellamy.

They were still within shouting distance when a sharp pain at the back of her head brought Clarke to her knees. Her vision blurred and crossed as she fell forward on her hands. She was vaguely aware of what sounded like Octavia screaming something back in camp.

“Clarke!” Finn came rushing back to her side. He knelt next to her and pulled her hair back to look at the side of the face. “What happened? Are you ok?”

Trembling, she began getting to her feet. She ground her teeth to help fight off the pain. “I'm f-fine. Just tripped. Come on, we need to go,” she said, reaching to the back of her head. She felt no blood, no lump. She swallowed, knowing what it must mean and followed after Finn and Charlotte, who were already several feet ahead of her. She sent a silent prayer to the universe, or anyone that might be listening that _her soulmate_ was ok.

+

“It's gonna be night soon, Finn. Please, tell me where we're going,” Clarke asked for the third time. It wasn't necessarily that she didn't trust him, just that she liked to know what was going on. “At least tell me you have a plan and we're not just wandering aimlessly through the woods.”

“I have a plan,” he replied from ahead of her, but didn't elaborate further. At the top of a small ridge he opened a door into the ground. Climbing down into a relic from before the bombs, she was astonished at how well preserved everything was. Clarke couldn't believe her eyes when Finn showed her jars of art supplies. Her mind began making lists of all the useful things she could do with the long forgotten bunker contents. After Charlotte laid down for the night, Clarke sat next to Finn on the dilapidated couch. She looked over to where Charlotte was.

“What're we going to to do about her?” she asked. “If I hadn't confronted Murphy none of this would have happened.” She clenched her hands unconsciously. How could things have gone so wrong, so fast?

“How could you know it'd go down like that?” Finn asked, sharing her sentiment and clearly trying to be reassuring.

“Bellamy knew.” She looked away from Finn. Bellamy obviously cared deeply about Octavia, and look at what he'd done for Charlotte, whom he had known for all of a few weeks. But he'd been willing to sacrifice Murphy if it meant appeasing the mob and hopefully maintaining the order of the camp. She knew that people on other stations who were less fortunate than her sometimes had to do...unsavory things to get by. She'd heard her parents talking about the black market on the Ark, and even on Alpha station, there were rumors of who to talk to when you needed something out of reach or unavailable. That was the life that Bellamy had grown up in. On top of living every day with the fear of Octavia's discovery. So maybe Clarke was right, and he wasn't a killer, but he was willing to become one if it meant keeping himself and Octavia safe. _That look on his face didn't seem like he was in much of a hurry, though_ , she thought, remembering Mbege chanting his name. Whatever the case, Bellamy knew enough about the delinquents to have a handle on how they would react to things.

“We think the grounders are a threat. Now we're killing each other,” she stated, looking at Finn again. “There have to be consequences.”

“We can't just let them hang people,” was his response, and she agreed. She just had no idea what the alternative was. “Hopefully, we figure it out before Murphy kills us for helping her,” he added. “He's not the forgive and forget type.”

+

When Clarke woke up during the night leaning on a still sleeping Finn, she knew a blush was creeping across her face. She didn't know how to feel about him, not really, other than that she generally liked him, but that was enough for a small smile to form while looking at him. That was short lived, however, as immediately that tentative happiness was smothered by guilt. _Not your soulmate_. She pushed the thought down as far as she could, looking away from Finn. It took her only a brief moment to register that the bed across the room didn't have Charlotte in it. She started shaking Finn.

“Finn. Finn, wake up.” She walked over to the bed, seeing that her original observation was an accurate one. “She's gone.” Scrambling to put out all the candles (the last thing they wanted was to burn the Art Supply Store), they made their way up the ladder as quickly as possible. Once outside, Finn was able to follow the girl's tracks. “This way.”

Not long after leaving, they heard Charlotte screaming. Knowing that every second counted, they moved as fast as they could in the dark, doing their best not to trip on a stray root or rock. They would be no good to anyone if one or both of them couldn't walk. Finn, having spent several nights out exploring, was much more adept than she was.

Clarke spotted light coming from torches ahead of them. A few moments later she made out Bellamy standing with Charlotte at the edge of a cliff. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart rate shot through the roof. _No, no, no_. She picked her pace up even more. Twisted ankle be damned. She overtook Finn just as they came up on the other teenagers.

She heard Bellamy threatening to take down as many of Murphy's hit squad as he could when she broke through to stand in the clearing. The small crowd was boring down on the obviously terrified Charlotte and protective Bellamy.

“Bellamy, stop!” she yelled. There was more desperation in it than she intended, and she took a breath to calm down. She looked at Murphy, stepping in between him and the ledge of the cliff, partially obstructing Bellamy and Charlotte. “This has gone too far. Just calm down. We'll talk about this.” Murphy didn't seem like a negotiating type, but Clarke didn't know what else to do. He had the numbers.

In the blink of an eye, John grabbed Clarke and pulled her to him, holding his knife to her throat. “I am sick. Of listening. To you talk.”

“Let her go!” Finn said, taking a step towards them, but Murphy just pointed his finger at him.

“Back off! I will slit her throat.” He enunciated each syllable individually. Clarke grabbed the arm holding her hostage, trying to pull it as far away from her neck as she could. She looked over to Charlotte and her eyes met Bellamy's. They were wide and wild, the torch light throwing his features in a harsh relief. He had one hand in front of Charlotte as he vacillated his weight from one foot to the other.

“No, please,” Charlotte cried, stealing everyone's attention. “Please don't hurt her.”

“Don't hurt her?” Murphy repeated. “Ok, I'll make you a deal. You come with me right now, I will let her go.” He patted Clarke on the shoulder to emphasize. Clarke had never heard anything that sounded more like a lie in her life. “Don't do it, Charlotte.”

Charlotte started to walk towards Murphy, but before she could take a single step Bellamy grabbed her. “No, I have to!” the girl screamed. He set her firmly on the ground behind him.

“Murphy, this is not happening,” he said point blank. Clarke wondered if he actually thought Murphy would listen to him. She felt raindrops beginning to fall on her head. She looked from Bellamy to Charlotte, watching as their hair became wet and water dripped down their faces. In the tense silence, it sounded like the whole world was gently crying.

“I can't let any of you get hurt anymore,” Charlotte said faintly. Clarke almost couldn't hear her. Bellamy turned to look at her. “Not because of me,” she continued, “not after what I did.” Before anyone could stop her, Charlotte turned around and threw herself over the edge behind her. Murphy's arm went slack in surprise and Clarke bolted to cliff.

She and Bellamy knelt next to each other, staring into the darkness, unable to see the bottom. She heard herself saying “NO! No, no, no, no” over and over, only this time out loud. She collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. She felt Bellamy stand up next to her. The portion of her mind that was still keeping it together knew that she should try and stop him, knew what he was about to do, but was unable to do so as her body continued to heave.

Bellamy launched himself at Murphy, tackling him to the ground. The pain from her knuckles as Bellamy laid into Murphy reeled her in and she turned, rushing over to stand over the two rolling around on the ground. Murphy was fighting back, but barely. The more Bellamy hit him, the further in the mud he sank and the weaker his resistance.

“Bellamy, stop, you'll kill him!” Her voice was high pitched, panicked. She grabbed the back of his jacket, and Finn joined in. The two of them successfully pulled Bellamy off, his arms still swinging, trying to get at Murphy.

“Get off me! He deserves to die!” He roared, anguish and pain making his voice crack. Clarke once again stepped in between the Bellamy and Murphy.

“No!” She implored. “We don't decide who lives and dies. Not down here.”

“So help me god, if you say the people have a right to decide-” he started, but she didn't even let him finish.

“No, no. I was wrong before, ok?” she admitted. “You were right. Sometimes it's dangerous to tell people the truth, but.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Finn's brow crease. She would deal with that later. He wasn't the one that the rest of the hundred (or what was left of them) looked up to. He wasn't the one that had been leading. Bellamy was. “But if we're going to survive down here, we can't just live by whatever the hell we want.” He took a step back at that. She knew that he was smart enough to realize that she was right. “We need rules.”

“And who makes those rules, huh? You?!” He asked, the resentful _Princess_ implied. It was a fair question and she knew he had a right to be suspicious. He and most of the other people sent to the ground had been oppressed by the Ark's elite in one way or another for all their lives.

“For now, we make the rules, ok?” she proposed, her voice down to its normal levels. "You and me." She could feel tears beginning to gather as the adrenaline wore off and her emotions began to overwhelm her.

“So, what, then? We just take him back and pretend like it never happened?” Bellamy had calmed some as well, but his emotions were still high.

“No!” She looked over to where Murphy still lay in the dirt, face split open and covered in blood once again. “We banish him.” She hoped this would be a good enough solution, because she it was the only one she had.

Bellamy glanced over at Finn, thinking it over for a split second. He surged past Clarke and grabbed Murphy by the chest.

“Get up,” he growled. He hauled him over to the ledge, letting his feet dangle over.

“Bellamy!” Clarke called. He hadn't killed Murphy yet, and she couldn't bare it if he did. They were so close to the possibility of having something better than the Ark. He looked back at her and clenched his jaw before turning back to Murphy.

He spoke so low that Clarke had to strain to hear him over the rain. “If I ever catch you near camp, we'll be back here, understand?” He threw Murphy to the ground and turned to the few people who hadn't left. “As for the four of you: you can come back to camp and follow me or go off with him to die. Your choice.” And with that, he left in the direction of the dropship, not looking back. Clarke watched as every single one of them turned and without a word trailed behind him. If she weren't so suddenly weary, she'd be impressed. She took one last look at Murphy curled up on the ground and started towards home, too.

+

When she finally made it back to camp, she made a bee line for Bellamy. He was standing at the fire, staring at the flames, unmoving. She walked up to him, trying to remain quiet, as if one sudden move or loud noise and he might break.

“Hey,” she said, standing close to him so that only he could hear. The rain had stopped and the heat from the fire was quickly drying her clothes and hair. From this distance she could see that he was mostly dry as well. She glanced at his hands, knuckles still covered in blood.

“What do you want, Clarke?” he asked, not looking at her. There was no heat behind the words, he just sounded tired.

“I, uh...” her words died in her throat. What _did_ she want? She'd come over to check on him, to make sure he was ok, but in her rush, she'd forgotten that he still couldn't stand her. “I think we should have a camp meeting,” she settled on. “Let everyone know what happened and what we've decided.” The silence seemed to stretch on forever. She was about to ask if he heard her when, without moving, he started barking orders to a few people loitering near by to round everyone up. She just stood there, unsure what to do.

There was no denying it now. She'd experienced the shared injuries in real time as Bellamy was beating the life out of Murphy. But what did one do when your soulmate wanted nothing to do with you? She remembered her mother's concerns again, thinking back to the conversation she'd had with her father. Maybe they would never be more than reluctant allies. She couldn't just let it go, though, not yet, at least.

“How's your head?” she broached, knowing that it was possible that he might have a concussion. His head snapped up to look at her with an intensity equal to that of the back and forth over banishing Murphy they'd only just had.

“My head?”

“Yeah, earlier you....”she trailed off, her stomach dropping as she suddenly came to the realization that she didn't actually _know_ how he'd hurt his head. _Fuck_ , she cursed, her mind scrambling. “Octavia. Octavia said you hurt your head after we left with....” she couldn't bring herself to say Charlotte's name. “After Finn and I left camp.”

He continued to stare at her. She held her breath. He wasn't stupid, and she didn't think he was buying her lie, she just hoped he didn't piece together why it was that she was lying.

He narrowed his eyes, seemingly about to say something but instead looked back at the fire, shrugging. “I've had worse.”

 _No, you haven't,_ Clarke argued inwardly, because of course, she would know, but she didn't want to press the issue too hard. She was quickly learning just how shrewd he was and the last thing she needed was him probing her with questions. _Or another chance to open my big mouth_.

“You should still let me look at it. After the meeting,” she said, because it was true. She was still the only one remotely qualified to deal with a concussion on the ground.

His only response was a grunt.

“Your boyfriend's waiting for you.” He said, still not looking at her.

“My boyfr....?” she started, her brow creasing in confusion. She glanced around and saw Finn at the edge of the firelight. “Oh, he's not-”

“Whatever,” he interrupted. “Have Miller come get me when everyone's here.” And with that he turned, trudging off in the direction of his tent. Clarke stood motionless, unsure what to make of that exchange. She felt Finn come up next to her.

“What's going on?”

“We're going to tell everyone what happened,” she answered, still facing where Bellamy had been only moments before. “And let them know: no more 'whatever the hell we want'.”

“You trust him?” Finn asked, “You really think this is a good idea?”

Clarke sighed. She wondered if life on the ground would ever be _not_ exhausting. “I don't know, Finn. But it's a start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, stay safe and stay well!


	6. Chapter 6

_Clarke was underground again. The room was large and mostly dark except for small balls of floating flames above the very long dining table she was seated at. There was a smorgasbord of food laid out on display, mostly fruits and vegetables with no meats, from what she could tell. She heard someone clear their throat to her right._

_Startled, she quickly turned, only to find Bellamy sitting with his elbows on the table, fingers interlaced. He was at the head of the table, the position of power. He had no plate or food directly in front of him, only what looked like what she would describe as a goblet of some kind._

_“I know you're angry with your mother, Kore, but you cannot stay here,” he said._

_Angry with her mother? Yes, she was that, but there was something else as well, she just couldn't remember. She studied him more closely for a brief moment. He was wearing some sort of inky colored robes and set in his dark curls was a golden crown shaped like a laurel wreath. It reminded her of images she'd seen of ancient statues._

_“Why? Why can I not stay?” she heard herself ask._

_“Why would you want to? This is a place of death, nowhere someone as young and full of life as a renewal goddess would want to be.” He sounded genuinely curious, though not overly so. Clarke hardened at his description of her, looking from him down to her hands which were resting in her lap._

_“I am no stranger to death,” she whispered. She realized that she was wearing something similar to what Bellamy was, a robe like garment, but hers was white. What am I doing here? Where are we?_

No sooner had she begun questioning her surroundings in earnest, did the world around her start to fade. She opened her eyes and saw the inside of the Art Supply Store.

She quickly ran through the dream again, before she could forget it. She knew she would want to analyze and think over all the details at a later time. The realization that Bellamy was the one that she'd been dreaming about for over a year now left her feeling complicated, to say the least. Made more so by the fact that she was laying naked in Finn's arms.

It made sense on some level. Up until this particular dream, she hadn't known what her soulmate looked like, so now that she did, her brain just plugged his image in. _Or maybe you always knew_ , said brain thought. She scoffed at herself. _How could I know what he looked like before I ever met him? That makes no sense_. She couldn't recall ever coming across anything about dreams when she was researching soulmates on the Ark. But then, it was a very incomplete source of knowledge. She sighed. She would probably never really know.

She rolled over to look at Finn, who started to wake up with her movement.

“Hey,” he said softly. She smiled and brushed his hair from his forehead.

“It's almost dawn, we should probably head back,” she suggested. “We can't just lay in bed all day.”

“Or...we could lay in bed all day,” he joked. She chuckled and shifted slightly as he began running his hand up and down her arm.

“Finn, you know that last night wasn't just about needing someone,” she started. He looked at her a bit more intently as she tried to find the words to articulate how she was feeling. The ground had stripped her of every relationship she had, in one way or another. The revelation that her soulmate wasn't going to be a source of comfort for her had been something of the last straw. She needed intimate and tender interactions with another human being, preferably one that liked her.

“I wanted it to be you,” she settled on telling him. His brow creased, still looking at her.

“I should probably tell you that last night, for me, wasn't really about you,” he told her with a straight face. Her chest started to tighten until he cracked a smile. “I just really wanted to have my first earth sex.” She giggled at that.

“You were around. Passably cute,” he explained, now openly laughing. “You jackass,” she teased, feeling better than she had in days.

+

The last thing Clarke expected to find in the crashed pod was a person. And if she had somehow guessed that that's what it contained, then it certainly wouldn't have been the beautiful mechanic, Raven. But the thing that surprised her the most, what really caught her off guard, was neither of those things. _I should've known Finn would have a girlfriend, and a stunning one at that_ , she chided herself. _Too good to be true._ All she could do was watch in shock as Raven lovingly embraced Finn, followed by a kiss. Clarke had never been punched in the stomach, but she imagined it was a similar sensation. When Raven collapsed to the ground, Finn suddenly remembered Clarke's presence.

“I'm sorry,” fell immediately out of his mouth after he ran over. Clarke began pulling supplies out of her bag to tend to Raven's head injury.

“Let's not talk about this,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“We've known each other our whole lives,” was his response, as if that made any of the situation somehow more tolerable.

“We don't need to talk about it,” Clarke repeated, almost spitting the words out. “She needs to put pressure on her wound.” She walked over to the rock Raven was sitting on, Finn's jacket draped around her shoulders.

“This is Clarke, she was on the dropship, too,” Finn said, introducing her finally. Raven put the rag Clarke gave her on her head to stop the bleeding. “Clarke?” the other girl asked after a moment, searching her face like she was trying to find something specific.

“This was all because of your mom,” Raven said, standing up.

“My mom?” Clarke repeated, taken aback.

“This was all her plan. We were trying to come down here together, but if we waited- oh my god.” Raven suddenly stopped, her eyes meeting Clarke's. They were so full of passion, and Clarke could see from just these brief interactions how Finn could love someone like this.

“We couldn't wait because the Council was voting whether to kill 300 people to save air.” Raven looked at Finn and back to Clarke.

“When?” Clarke asked, horrified but not surprised. The Ark was always cold calculations and actions, whatever gave humanity it's best chance for survival.

“Today. We have to tell them you're alive,” Raven called, already running over to the pod wreckage. She stuck her head under the console. “The radio's gone," she called out. "It must've gotten loose during reentry, I should've strapped it to the A-strut. Stupid!” She pulled herself back out and punched the metal siding of the pod. Clarke hated seeing her blame herself when the fact that she was standing there at all was practically a miracle. Plus, she didn't think the missing radio had anything to do with a rough landing.

“No, no, this is my fault,” Clarke interjected. “Someone got here before us. We have to find him.” _And hope he's cooperative_ , she prayed. “He's probably still on the way back to camp, let's go.”

Clarke started in that direction, moving faster than Finn and Raven. She had no desire to listen to them any more than she had to. She was angry and hurt, but there wasn't time to dwell on it while the lives of 300 people were in the balance and every second counted. After a while, she spotted a black clad figure walking on the trail. She picked up the pace to a run, wanting to get to Bellamy first. She thought she might have a better chance at a good outcome without Finn there. He and Bellamy had only grown to dislike each other more over the last few weeks, and Clarke wouldn't put it past Bellamy to do something drastic to spite him. And she had zero idea how Raven would react.

“Hey! Where is it?” she asked, running up behind him. She grabbed his shoulder and turned him to face her.

“Hey, Princess, you taking a walk in the woods?” he asked her, his tone on the surface casual. She could tell it was a front, though. She saw the tension in his stance. She didn't bother with pretense, they both knew what he had done.

“They're getting ready to kill 300 people up there to save oxygen,” she said, catching her breath. “And I can guarantee you, it won't be council members. It'll be working people,” she forcefully tapped his chest for emphasis, “ _your_ people.” She hoped an appeal to his hatred of her station would persuade him. She didn't think that he would want to be responsible for so many deaths, given his initial hesitation to hang Murphy, but she hadn't quite figured out his motive for wanting to prevent any communication with the Ark yet. Bellamy was about to say something to her when Finn came leaping over a log they were standing next to. “Bellamy! Where's the radio?” He said, voice raised as he shoved him backwards.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Bellamy said through gritted teeth, shoving Finn back.

“Bellamy Blake?” Raven asked, coming up behind Finn. “They're looking everywhere for you.” She looked him up and down, a smug look on her face.

“Shut up,” was Bellamy's only response. Clarke looked between the two of them, instinctively knowing that this was the key to the puzzle of Bellamy's behavior since getting to the ground.

“Looking for him why?”

“ _He_ shot Chancellor Jaha.” Clarke and Finn both turned and looked at Bellamy. Everything suddenly clicked into place.

“That's why you took the wristbands. Needed everyone to think we were dead,” she said, processing aloud. For the first time, Bellamy looked ashamed as he listened to her, not denying anything.

“And all that 'whatever the hell we want'?” Finn added. Bellamy's eye shifted to him and his face hardened. “You just cared about saving your own skin,” Finn finished and Bellamy turned to leave before the sentence was through. Raven wasn't having it. “Hey! Shooter! Where's my radio?” She ran and planted herself squarely in his path.

“Get out of my way.”

“Where is it?”

“I should've killed you when I had the chance,” was all Bellamy said, still not moving.

“Really? Well, I'm right here,” Raven offered, stepping up to his chest. Clarke couldn't help but be impressed. _She_ wouldn't fight Bellamy, and for good reason, as the man grabbed Raven and spun her around, shoving her against a tree by her throat. By the time they stopped moving, though, Raven had a knife, and actual one, not one of the pieces of scrap that passed down on the ground, an inch from his left eye. “Where's. My. Radio?” she demanded. Clarke flew over to them, before Raven started actually hurting Bellamy. That would be all she needed.

Bellamy released Raven and stepped away. “Jaha deserved to die. You all know that,” he said over his shoulder. Clarke couldn't say that she agreed, but she didn't think he was talking to her.

“Yeah, he isn't my favorite person either,” Raven called after him. “But he isn't dead.” At that, Bellamy turned around to stare.

“What?”

“You're a lousy shot,” Raven answered, shrugging. Clarke took this opportunity to appeal to the good she knew (hoped?) was inside him. She crossed the clearing to stand close to him, so that Finn and Raven wouldn't overhear.

“Bellamy, don't you see what this means?” she implored. “You're not a murderer.” He averted his eyes from hers. “You've always done what you had to to protect your sister. That's who you are.” At that he looked at her again, his chest moving rapidly up and down. Clarke barreled on, she could tell that she was getting to him. “And you can do it again, by protecting 300 of your people.” She stared into his eyes, refusing to break contact. “Where's the radio?” At that he looked away again. His voice low and almost cracking, he said, “It's too late.”

“It's never too late, Bellamy.”

+

Finn went back to camp while Bellamy took Clarke and Raven to the stream where he'd thrown the radio. The two ladies began searching the banks in case it washed up, and Bellamy waited closer to the tree line, watching them. Not too long after, Finn showed with some volunteers to help look. Clarke was searching the rocks of a shallower part of the stream when Finn approached her.

“I should've told you about her,” he admitted.

“It's ok,” Clarke said to him, really not in the mood. She continued scanning for the radio, purposefully not looking at him. He pulled her arm, forcing her to face him.

“I didn't think I'd see her again.”

“But you wouldn't take off your wristband,” she stated. She wasn't angry, not really, just...disappointed. She'd liked Finn and now their friendship would always be colored by this dishonesty, even if he hadn't meant to hurt her. “You had hope. It's ok, I get it.” She glanced over to Raven. _Plus, just look at her_ , she thought. Clarke generally wasn't much for self deprecation, but she had eyes. _If I'd grown up with her, I'd probably love her, too, soulmate or no._ She looked back at Finn.

“I was around, passably cute, and now it's over.” Clarke looked over his shoulder to where Bellamy was sitting on the shore. He hadn't said a word to anyone since they'd gotten there.

“Hey! I found it!” Clarke heard someone yell from behind her. Raven had already run over to take it back to dry land. By the time Clarke made it to the other girl, Raven was already pulling wires out.

“Can you fix it?”

“Maybe,” Raven said, shaking more water out of it. “It'll take half the day just to dry out the components to see what's broken.”

“Like I said. It's too late,” Bellamy chimed in, breaking his silence. Clarke stepped up to him, frustration boiling over. “Do you have any idea what you did? Do you even care???” she cried, his face unmoving.

“You asked me to help. I helped.”

“Three hundred people are gonna die today because of you!” She knew that he wasn't aware of the consequences of his actions when he trashed the radio, but she needed to illicit some kind of reaction out of him. For some reason unknown to her she couldn't tolerate him standing stoically with no emotion at the situation. She was about to resort to shoving him when Raven interrupted her.

“Hold up. We don't have to _talk_ to the Ark. We just have to let them know we're down here, right?” she asked, turning to Finn.

“Yeah, but how do we do that with no radio?” he countered. Raven grinned at him.

“Your girlfriend is a genius,” was all she said before walking back up the hill towards camp. At her words, Bellamy immediately looked at Clarke, who chose not to acknowledge him. She didn't have to explain anything to him, although her gut reaction was to do just that. Everyone else began leaving and Clarke followed suit, leaving Bellamy behind, still staring.

+

Clarke watched the rockets launching into the sky, her heart heavy. Even if the Ark saw them, she wasn't convinced it would be enough to stay the culling. Around her, people were treating the occasion like a party, cheering and whooping. She didn't know how many of them knew exactly why it was imperative they send what were essentially glorified signal flairs up, so she couldn't blame them for enjoying what boiled down to fireworks.

Raven had taken charge of the launch site construction, so she may have explained to those who were helping what the rush was. She herself hadn't told many people, but then none had really asked her, other than Monty. In fact, most of her fellow teenagers kept their distance, she'd noticed. She didn't really mind; after all, for the most part, she'd grown up with only one friend. There'd been short flings as well, but they never lasted more than a month or two. She just couldn't get close to anyone other than Wells. She had always wondered if it was due to the soulmate thing. While it was never something she did consciously, she couldn't deny that the bruises and such were a constant reminder that there was someone out there who would always potentially be a “better match”. So, she'd come to terms with being mostly alone, but looking at Finn and Raven standing together, holding one another, she couldn't help but feel a deep loneliness.

She felt, rather than saw, Bellamy step up just behind her, out of her line of vision. It seemed like he'd been near by lately, more so than she was used to. He didn't interact much, he was just...around. It could've been her imagination or that she was just more aware of his presence since realizing exactly who he was to her. Either way, it didn't much matter for the moment, and it actually made things easier since they'd come to their tentative 'co-leader' arrangement after Charlotte. When the last few rockets took off, he stepped in line with her and let out a deep sigh.

“You think they can see it from up there?” he asked her quietly.

“I don't know. I hope so,” she answered truthfully, not taking her eyes off the launch. “You think you can wish on this kind of shooting star?” She thought out loud, not really expecting a response. After all, when Finn had mentioned 'wishing on shooting stars' to her, she had basically laughed in his face. Bellamy looked at her like she might be losing her mind, reacting not unlike she had. _Probably shouldn't wish for anything anyways, the way things have been going_ , she thought. _The universe would just turn it into something terrible, just for fun_.

“Forget it,” she muttered under her breath.

“I wouldn't even know what to wish for,” Bellamy said after a moment. “What about you?” he asked, surprising Clarke somewhat. She said nothing but looked over to Finn and Raven again. Raven noticed her watching and smiled at her. Clarke did her best to smile back, but it didn't reach her eyes. _What would I wish for?_ She knew her deepest, darkest wish was unfathomable, and unspeakable, at least to him. So she settled for: “An easy winter.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Only you, Princess. Always practical.” Clarke thought back to being trapped in the car with Finn and Wells, Finn flirting with her, saying she was no fun. What a different world she lived in now. If she thought on how much her life had changed and how often for too long, she knew it would cause her nothing but grief. So she didn't. As the final rocket faded, she turned to Bellamy, searching his face. The far off light of the camp fire made his features softer and his expression was something she wasn't used to seeing. He looked almost anxious.

She nodded and put her hand on his shoulder. “Just get some rest, Bellamy. We'll talk in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the shorter chapter, but! We're about to get into some good stuff!
> 
> Thanks as always for reading, and I hope you have a lovely week!


End file.
